Fdzfgy

I am very happy to have found such an interesting forum and to have received an excellent detailed answer from a native speaker to my first question, and I am very tempted to ask about something else I have not yet fully understood in the Russian language. I am very curious what the native speakers have to say.

At my university in Japan I have got an exercise on sequence of tenses, and the exercise is to translate the following to Russian:

I sliced sashimi from a convulsing squid - actually the one I had
wanted to eat myself - and served the guest waiting for his meal.
Walking back, I glanced in the mirror to see whether he was looking at
me.

My approach is to always strive in the most utmost manner to translate absolutely flawlessly and in the most natural way and to deeply understand why I make this or that choice.

Thinking hard and making difficult choices, I came up with this:

Я нарезала на сашими конвульсирующего кальмара - кстати, того самого,
которого хотела было сама съесть - и подала ожидавшему свою трапезу
гостю. Идя обратно, я глянула в зеркало, не смотрит ли он на меня.

I am still very unsure whether I made the best choices, and feel that I have not yet fully understood sequence of tenses in Russian.

I would like to humbly ask the natural speakers to answer the following questions of mine:

1. Конвульсирующего or конвульсировавшего? Are both variants acceptable? Is any of them preferable? If so, which one? I chose the present tense to stress that the squid was convulsing as I sliced it.




2. Хотела было or захотела было or раньше хотела or раньше захотела? I was taught that the former two variants are the proper traditional ones and used by well-educated people, whilst the latter two variants are simplified and used by poorly educated simpletons. Choosing between the first two variants, I chose the first one because it is more neutral and seems to better fit the original text.




3. Ожидавшему or ожидающему? I intuitively chose the past tense because the point is not that the guest was waiting at the moment at which I served him, but that he had waited. At the very moment at which I served him he obviously was not waiting anymore.




4. Смотрит or смотрел? I was taught that the sequence of tenses in indirect speech is natural (он сказал, что принимает трапезу), whilst in relative clauses - attracted (он увидел рыбу, которая барахталась). According to my professor, it is a grave mistake to break this rule. But how do I have to classify the clause in the sentence with the mirror?! It is neither indirect speech nor a relative clause.




5. At how many places in my Russian translation I utterly failed, leaving hints I am not a native speaker? Word choices, word sequence, and so on. I would be happy to receive frank criticisms.

I am humbly looking forward to reading enlightening answers of native speakers of this highly complex and powerful language.

1. 
   Конвульсирующего or конвульсировавшего? Are both variants acceptable?
   Is any of them preferable? If so, which one? I chose the present tense
   to stress that the squid was convulsing as I sliced it.

I think present participle, the one did you opt for, is preferable. Past participle would have a connotation of convulsing at one point in the past but not necessarily at the moment of slicing.

On the other hand, had the sentence required the imperfective predicate нарезАла instead of нарЕзала, both participles would mean convulsing concurrent with the act of slicing.

^{Check also answers to a similar question Может ли причастный оборот не согласоваться во времени с целым предложением?}

2. 
   Хотела было or захотела было or раньше хотела or раньше захотела? I
   was taught that the former two variants are the proper traditional
   ones and used by well-educated people, whilst the latter two variants
   are simplified and used by poorly educated simpletons. Choosing
   between the first two variants, I chose the first one because it is
   more neutral and seems to better fit the original text.

The use of particle было is a great idea. However it has a specific connotation which may not fit the context of the sentence, because it modifies a verb to mean an act which lasted for a brief moment. When an act denoted by the verb lasted for some time in my opinion the adverb поначалу/сначала would fit better. The adverb раньше would be altogether incorrect.

Also be aware that in spoken language this particle было almost never occurs. It's a language feature well on its way to being an anachronism whose use is now mainly relegated to literature.

3. 
   Ожидавшему or ожидающему? I intuitively chose the past tense because
   the point is not that the guest was waiting at the moment at which I
   served him, but that he had waited. At the very moment at which I
   served him he obviously was not waiting anymore.

Same as 1. But here past participle is equally appropriate because there's no connotation of necessarily contemporaneous activities.

4. 
   Смотрит or смотрел? I was taught that the sequence of tenses in indirect speech is natural (он сказал, что принимает трапезу), whilst
   in relative clauses - attracted (он увидел рыбу, которая барахталась).
   According to my professor, it is a grave mistake to break this rule.
   But how do I have to classify the clause in the sentence with the
   mirror?! It is neither indirect speech nor a relative clause.

Here you do indeed deal with relative (subordinate) clause in the form of relative question, attached by means of conjunction ли (see косвенные вопросы, исключение, частица ли), and these require verb in present tense, provided that action in subordinate clause is concurrent with the one expressed by the main clause.

actually the one I had wanted to eat myself

кстати, того самого, которого хотела было сама съесть

Actually isn't always an easy word to translate. Although it could be rendered as кстати, in the context of this sentence it sounds a little inconsistent, because reader has already been told about the squid and a sudden aside remark about it, fashioned with кстати, fails to convey surprise and suddenness. In my view вообще-то / по правде говоря/сказать could do more justice to the original here.

Likewise with regard to того самого, which comes immediately after its referent (the squid), while the distance between these two in Russian needs to be greater, so that того самого does convey the connotation of a reminder which is otherwise lost when it comes immediately after the thing it's supposed to remind us about.

So considering the abovesaid I would render the entire clause in a simpler way - которого я поначалу хотела сама съесть or которого я вообще-то хотела съесть сама. Поначалу and вообще-то don't go well together, that's why i had to choose.

5. At how many places in my Russian translation I utterly failed, leaving hints I am not a native speaker? Word choices, word sequence, and so on. I would be happy to receive frank criticisms.

In my opinion none. Flows totally natural. The above remarks don't detract from its quality because by and large they're immaterial.