For Combat Merits,3151093,Gunner,242nd Separate Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division

[CtahhR]

The most important part of not only collecting but understanding what is collecting is enthusiasm. I know it gets harder to be enthusiastic the older we get but keeping the candle burning is a great thing. The military acronyms of any nation can be tricky - even in a native tongue so in a different language and alphabet it's a great learning task. Fortunately we have lots of resources and a community.

I think we all start with "CCCP", "KGB", "MVD", then move on to "RVK" and beyond. The most difficult one I've come across recently is "TOPO" - "Trade And Production Section" of the NKVD/NKGB. Everything what to tell me it was "Topo" (Topographical) but it wasn't.

I think some of the more "deliberate" errors on google translate come from sayings being translated. (Fictional example) The Russian saying for something along the lines of "Like watching paint dry" or "watching grass grow" will have results for grass and paint being the same word as it'll be translated as a phrase but if you are trying to translate that word in another phrase you can have a word that translates to "paint" or "grass" even though it's a completely different word "watching the mountain grow". So you can put in "attacked a mountain" and it'll come back as "attacked paint" or "attacked grass". Complete nonsense but it comes from translate phrases with a similar meaning rather than the wording.

So often "service" and "merit" are incorrectly mistaken as are "honour" and "merit" so rather than "honourable service" you could get "meriting merit" and the other way round. Although translation generally has become a lot more true than "gist of" over the last 10 years.

Can't really complain though having the most complicated language in the world as my first tongue. Shouldn't enforce transliteration to be phonetic rather than a true transliteration due to the fact that we don't use phonetic spellings. Am I right or am I rite? I hope I'm not Wright.

Life's a long learning experience we can embrace it and enjoy it or ignore it and be frustrated. I'm glad so many of us here can enjoy propagating the actions and deeds of those who aren't here to do it for themselves.