How difficult could it be to translate one short phrase into Russian? However, when you attempt to translate a completely foreign concept like trick-or-treating, you could face some difficulty. The well-known Halloween phrase Trick or treat! turned out to be a challenge for translators. There are quite a few versions; however, nobody has come up with the perfect Russian translation yet.
Here are some of them, and you can choose what you like best.
Кошелёк и́ли жизнь! – Your wallet or your life.
Сла́дость и́ли ша́лость! – A sweet treat or a trick.
Сла́дости и́ли га́дости! – Sweets or dirty tricks.
Игру́шку и́ли угоще́ние! – A toy or a treat.
Хле́ба или зре́лищ! – Bread or shows.
Всем приве́т, хоти́м конфе́т! – Hello everyone, we want candy.
Угоща́й, а то проу́чим! – Give a treat, or we’ll teach you a lesson.
Ли́бо конфе́т полу́чим, ли́бо тебя́ проу́чим! – We either get candy, or teach you a lesson.
How about trick-or-treating itself? I’ve seen the phrase translated like выпра́шивание сла́достей (begging for sweets). It sounds a little artificial to me. Should Russian just borrow the whole phrase and turn it into a verb – trick-or-treat-ить (трикотри́тить)? It could be easily used with the verb ходить (to go).
Let's translate the English sentence It was Halloween yesterday, and we all went trick-or-treating. It was fun. Which of the following would be a better translation?
Вчера́ был Хеллоуи́н, и мы все ходи́ли выпра́шивать сла́дости. Бы́ло ве́село!
Вчера́ был Хеллоуи́н, и мы все ходи́ли трикотри́тить. Бы́ло ве́село!
I would go with the second version because there is no much fun in begging for sweets, and I wouldn’t even say Было весело!
You will certainly find a lot of borrowed words in Russian. Halloween – Хеллоуи́н is one of the examples. Why not borrow the Halloween phrase as well if the concept takes so many words to explain it in Russian? What do you think?