Day 108: A Tremor Under Baikal
At a seismic station near Irkutsk, a student on night duty wakes the head of the station because of a sharp line on the monitor.
How to study this lesson 3 steps
- Read the situation under the title.
- Read the dialogue and its translation. The audio for this lesson is coming soon.
- Spend at least 30 minutes listening to native Russian audio, for example from the Resources page. It doesn't matter if you don't understand it yet.
Dialogue
Audio for this lesson is coming soon. For now, read the dialogue and its translation.
Keys: E hide English · ← → previous / next day
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A
Николай Егорович, извините, что бужу. На сейсмографе резкий всплеск, я подумал, прибор сломался.
Nikolai Yegorovich, sorry to wake you. There's a sharp spike on the seismograph, I thought the instrument had broken.
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B
Прибор у нас надёжней швейцарских часов. Ну-ка... Так, судя по всему, это самый настоящий толчок.
Our instrument is more reliable than a Swiss watch. Let's see... Right, by the look of it, that's a genuine tremor.
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A
Землетрясение? Но я ничего не почувствовал, даже чай в стакане не дрогнул.
An earthquake? But I didn't feel a thing, the tea in my glass didn't even tremble.
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B
И не почувствовал бы: магнитуда около трёх, эпицентр, предположительно, под самым Байкалом. Такие здесь, впрочем, чуть ли не каждую неделю.
You wouldn't have: magnitude about three, the epicentre presumably right under Baikal. We get those almost every week here, mind you.
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A
Каждую неделю? А я-то думал, тут тишь да гладь, раз люди дома строят.
Every week? And there was me thinking it was all peace and quiet here, since people build houses.
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B
Байкал, дорогой мой, это разлом, и он расходится на несколько миллиметров в год. Медленно, но тем не менее через миллионы лет здесь, вполне возможно, будет океан.
Baikal, my dear fellow, is a rift, and it's pulling apart by a few millimetres a year. Slowly, but all the same, in millions of years there may well be an ocean here.
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A
То есть мы живём на растущей трещине? Мне от такой науки не по себе.
So we're living on a growing crack? That kind of science makes me uneasy.
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B
Растёт она медленнее, чем ногти, так что спи спокойно. Хотя нет, не спи: зафиксированный толчок надо внести в журнал.
It grows more slowly than your fingernails, so sleep easy. Actually, no, don't sleep: the recorded tremor has to go in the log.
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A
Уже записываю. Эх, первое в жизни землетрясение, и то почувствовал только монитор.
I'm writing it down. Oh well, the first earthquake of my life, and only the monitor felt it.
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