rikka Apr 15, 2013:

maybe not trousers, but - hey - a shirt! All we need to do now is become very very small - http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Shirt-out-of-a-One-Dollar-Bill

rns Apr 15, 2013:

@James McVay "You can't get trousers from the United States but you can from China." — thinking along, I'd suggest this "US dollars are spent to buy trousers from China rather than to make them [here] in the US."

The Misha Apr 15, 2013:

Worst fears realized! So we are in fact a major consumer of Chinese garlic. Man, I just knew it!. They really, really have us hooked!

The Misha Apr 15, 2013:

You are absolutely right, Ms. Popova I don't know you or anything about you. Any conclusions I make for my own sinister purposes come exclusively from the quality of your writing and logical reasoning. But you are right, let's not waste any more time on this. Cheers.

Alexander Onishko Apr 15, 2013:

Re: what kind of foods we import from China For example US imports garlic on a very large scale

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-04/14/content_150...

James McVay (asker) Apr 15, 2013:

More context This is a helpful discussion, and I appreciate everybody who has contributed. However,I see that I should have quoted more from the article. The author goes on to say:

Индустриальный полюс не так давно переместился в Поднебесную. Последняя обладает крупнейшими резервами дешевой и качественной рабочей силы, а также благоприятными условиями хозяйствования. Для выпуска брюк, в которые КНР одевает не только население США, но и весь мир, КНР требуется много нефти и газа.

Pants are a convenient metaphor for China as the source of cheap consumer goods for the world. So it seems that how to handle the idiom isn't the main thing I need to be concerned about in the translation. His point seems to be that pants are made in the US anymore. China makes them for people in the US and elsewhere. But it needs to buy energy from outside in order to make them. Pants are a convenient metaphor for China as the source of cheap consumer goods for the world.

My working draft has the sentence translated more or less literally: "You can't get trousers from the United States but you can from China." Any thoughts on that?

The Misha Apr 15, 2013:

contd. It's not particularly good, but it's cheap enough and so far it hasn't killed me. Now, if this sounds like a major food import from China, well, maybe it is, but mind you most Americans are way, way less gastronomically adventurous than yours truly here. RNS is right, perception is king, and anything Chinese-made just doesn't enjoy a particularly good reputation in this country.

The Misha Apr 15, 2013:

I am in an enviable position to tell you exactly what kind of foods we import from China since I am a great fan of Asian stuff and cook a lot of it myself. I live a block away from this great Korean-owned supermarket where I shop daily that does have its shelves stocked with what looks like virtually every yummy morsel of oriental extraction (with a few notable unfortunate exceptions) one can think of. Some of the canned/processed foods and sauces are in fact made in China though personally I take particular pains to avoid them like a plague, and this seems to be more or less the general attitude among the local Asian populations, with the exception of Chinese cigarettes that I did see older men buying. There is really no need to take a risk on any of this stuff since suitable substitutes are readily available from Taiwan (very good), Vietnam (excellent) or Thailand (truly divine). However, all the fresh Asian produce - such as greens, tarot, daikon and what not - is almost exclusively grown in California, and tons of other exotics are produced by the Chinese and Koreans right here, in NYC, California and Canada. One notable exception is garlic, of which most does seem to be imported from China, whatever the reason.

Maria Popova Apr 15, 2013:

to The Misha I guess you have no clue about my knowledge of the country. Still you didn't read carefully my response, put it in a wrong way and commented on it. Please let's close this discussion and not waste our time and of other participants.

rns Apr 15, 2013:

@Alexander Onishko I was tempted to make that argument too, but was unable to find the prooflink.

Still, The Misha's statement holds as it's more about the perception than the imports.

Alexander Onishko Apr 15, 2013:

@The Misha Re: "Believe me, the last place we here in the US want to be buying our food from is China."

I understand your feelings, but the funny thing is that the US does import a lot of food from China. :)

The Misha Apr 15, 2013:

Dear Ms. Popova Thank you for making an assumption about my reading habits and the valuable suggestion that I "pay more attention". I will definitely take it under advisement. The problem, however, remains that saying that USD buys you food "even IN China" as you suggested is technically speaking a mistranslation that distorts the intended meaning of the original sentence. What you are trying to do here is transplant a metaphor directly from one language to another without being aware of the specific realities of the country where the target language is spoken. This is precisely the reason why marketers worth their salt do cultural testing and validate their proposed translations before using them. If I were into offering gratuitous advice - which, mind you, I am not - I'd say this would be a more deserving issue to concentrate one's attention on.

rns Apr 15, 2013:

@The Misha — Good point and perfectly guessable (on a second thought) too.

Maria Popova Apr 15, 2013:

to The Misha It seems like you read without paying attention. The exact phrase is actually "Спасибо на хлеб не намажешь" and my answer was "you can buy food even IN China". Please be more careful.

The Misha Apr 15, 2013:

Folks, I'd be very careful with all this food or breakfast business here. Believe me, the last place we here in the US want to be buying our food from is China. The mere suggestion of that is going to raise quite a few eyebrows. Again, it's kind of remarkable how what would work fine as a general case isn't working here.

Alexander Onishko Apr 15, 2013:

* Re: I'm wondering whether "Брюки не сошьешь" should be taken literally, or whether it's an idiom or a literary reference. - it's an allusion to the proverb "Спасибо на хлеб не намажешь"

The Misha Apr 15, 2013:

Из спасибо штанов не сошьешь This is apparently a play on the above. Sometimes you can come across "promises" in lieu of "spasibo's" and what they are making (or rather NOT) making is shapkas or shubas, but it's all fairly close. It's not so much an idiom as something that's always been out there and those of us who grew up in that neck of the woods simply picked it out of the air.

The funny thing is that a natural US equivalent for this would be "this and this won't pay the bills" or something to that effect, except in your particular case we actually do use those greenbacks to pay the bills.