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- "Це ваша маршрутка."
41 Comments
To me, this is a far better translation than "share taxi", which I've never heard and can only have been invented by a foreigner, since the closest convincing expression is "shared taxi". ("Share taxi" may be a mis-hearing of that). To say "taxi" implies that it will go anywhere you want (rather than following a fixed route). The best translation is just "marshrutka". In France, there is the Académie Française fighting its hopeless battle against foreign influence on French, but English adopts many foreign words without demur.
In each other example of маршрутка the answer "minibus" is accepted except here. In english people just don't say share taxi.
I'm not sure I understand. What's the difference between a route taxi and a regular taxi if this word means taxi and not city bus?
If you ever go to Ukraine, you will initiated on the marshrutka sooner or later. Unlike regular taxis (which are just like our own yellow cabs in NYC/Philly/DC), marshrutkas are usually minivans/mini-buses that travel on fixed routes and where people pack in very tightly like sardines if busy. When paying your fare, you will pass your money to the guy/gal in front of you, which subsequently gets passed up to the driver person to person. Your change will be passed down from person to person until it gets to you - should someone try to steal your change, they will be severely chastized (or beaten as in the case of one unfortunate dude that tried it on one that I was riding on in 2005/2008).
God help the uninitiated if you take an extremely crowded marshrutka on a hot summer day with everyone sweating profusely AND farting a mixture of digested shnitsli/kapusta (add the requisite diesel exhaust fumes if you take a very old, beaten up marshrutka - they have gotten a lot better in recent years as I have heard from friends over there). You will be scolded if you dare open a window (Ukrainians have a pathological fear of drafts - trust me, all of my grandparents had this fear [my parents too, although mom and dad are fully Americanized]). You also will be jammed in so tightly that you will become a part of one compressed human amoeba.
Generally, they are a fast, easy, and cheap means of transportation, both within a city, and between cities (or even countries!).
1108
You are right. Very often, so it is. However, not in all cities of Ukraine. For example, in Vinnytsia overcrowded taxi-bus are pretty rare. And only in peak hours.
I hear you. It is nice to hear that in some places that it is not so, although the primordial fear of drafts seems to be very commonplace (it is just like that here with my own family and with the people I work with on a routine basis - they all look at me with five heads whenever it is breezy and I open a window or stand in front of an air conditioner to cool off) ;)
I noticed this also, lived near Lviv for a year and I've always wondered what is behind this fear of drafts? It was to the point where i found it completely irrational, it's always kinda bugged me. So i would love to know the reasoning...(i didn't find it like this in Poland, etc)
I was told three different reasons for the extreme fear of drafts among hard-core Ukies [our American-Ukrainian slang for Ukrainians in general, don't know if the Argentinian/Brazilian-Ukies or Canadian/British/Aussie-Ukies refer to themselves as such]:
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Both of my Babas [I know, among Ukies in Ukraine today, this is seen as derogatory, but I grew up in the diaspora and was told by both grandmothers to call them "Baba" . . . heck, some of my parishioners insist that I call them "Baba" . . . :) ] told me that whenever you feel a cold draft, particularly on your back or the back of your neck, that is the devil walking past you. That creeped me out when I was a kid.
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If you sleep and you have a draft blowing on your neck, your muscles will stiffen up and give you a crooked neck (experienced this sleeping under an air conditioner once, was quite uncomfortable until I could get the chiropractor to work the kink out). Having the crooked and painful neck due to muscle spasms freaks some people, as it sure does among my own family members.
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There is a pervasive and pathological fear of catching a cold/flu from a draft that would eventually morph into full-blown pneumonia from which one would have a 99.5% mortality rate. This irrational fear seems to be hard wired into the genetic structure of most Ukies. Given that the state of medical care in Ukraine was practically nil not too long ago, people were often paranoid to the point of going to ridiculous measures to ensure that you did not catch a cold
When I was a kid, my grandparents and parents would ABSOLUTELY insist that I bundle up in ridiculous layers whenever the weather started to get chilly . . . I would be sweating bullets all bundled up, and then when I complained I was too hot, I would be told "No you are not hot, it is all in your head. You don't want to get a cold and die." [Note that this is VERY common in particular among elderly Ukies, although the younger ones sometimes have this maddeningly irrational attitude as well. On one unusually hot early summer day in Yaremche, I decided to stick my feet into a creek that was ice cold. Damn that felt great, but a pair of twenty-something Ukie girls angrily came up to me with an arrogant air saying that I was going to die from cold. I really wanted to reply "ПНХ," but I bit my tongue and gave them the standard Ukie hand wave and grunt . . . ]
It's not really a taxi, nor is it really a city bus - it's a private van that travels an agreed-upon route (just like a public bus would). Marshrut means "route," hence the not-very-helpful translation of "route taxi."
There are also a pretty good article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka in the English Wikipedia.
By the way, there used to be a word "таксобус" (basically, a portmanteau word: "такси"+"автобус") in Kyiv (and perhaps some other Ukrainian cities) in 1990s, unknown in Russia and referring to those route taxis that employed full-fledged buses, not minivans. Not sure is the word is still in use.
What the heck is a "share taxi" I've never heard this term as a native English speaker
That's because there's no such thing in English as a "share taxi." A taxi is a taxi, and you're free to share it with whomever you want! But a "marshrutka" a smaller-size van, instead of a bus. It's a shuttle, usually
I write this is your share taxi/minibus, but the program gives me incorrect each time, noting the ukrainian text:
"You used the wrong word. This is your marshrutka."
I don't know about the British, but Americans wouldn't know that "minibus" is public transportation. Perhaps "shuttle" would be a better translation of маршрутка. We just have busses. Even the smaller ones are still called "the bus" or "the shuttle."
In British English, "minibus" might be public or private transport. That is, you may be using it with people you don't know or you may have hired it privately.
This is your shuttle.
We don't have "share taxis" in the United States. Just taxis. A more precise translation of маршрутка should be "shuttle."
The intonation of the audio isn't the same as the sentence itself. Woman asks "Це ваша маршрутка?" And if you start off here you'll write the question in English "Is it your share taxi?" instead of "It is your share taxi." which is assumed to be correct. Please, change it to the question.
duolingo gotta re-record this to make it sound like a statement, not a question.
'Share taxi' is a really uncommon concept in the US. It might be better to translate this simply as 'bus'
Anything but "share taxi", which only a foreigner could have invented, perhaps by mis-hearing "shared taxi".
