уход на улицу

04:17 Dec 5, 2017 

тематика Psychology,
there are specific terms in Psychology. No need to create new ones.
Child runaway and child neglect are specific terms which are widely used.
Meaning in general:
A runaway is someone, especially a child, who leaves home without telling anyone or without permission. ...a teenage runaway.

22:59 Dec 4, 2017 

Thanks, that's a good idea.

21:21 Dec 4, 2017 

Susan, given that the original is written as a generalization, rather than characterizing what happens with any one child, what if you were to finesse (aka "fudge") it like this, which would subsume both runaways and those for whom being a street kid is only their day job?

"... promotes tendencies towards destructive behavior, aggressivity, more time spent 'on the streets' (neglected), etc."

Or "unsupervised" rather than "neglected," but that's a different questions.

The quotation marks around "on the streets" do still look out of place, but maybe it's an idea. FWIW, searching for "more time spent on the streets" is pretty productive, with numerous sources talking about juveniles.
https://www.google.com/search?ei=rrklWqqEN6S0ggfQnpmADg&q="m...

20:42 Dec 4, 2017 

half of those providing answers here are not even legitimate (native) Russian speakers, so there isn't that much disagreement, after all :)
And for the record: I represent the "younger generation" and the phrase in question is as much of a "newspeak" to me as it is to the "old geezers":)

20:04 Dec 4, 2017 

I am totally flattered to be included in "old geezers like you and me". In this business, geezers rule. И вообще, geezers of the world, unite!

19:53 Dec 4, 2017 

Thanks Misha, now I got it. The elaboration of the Russian phrases is helpful. (With the caveat that what's "newspeak" to old geezers like you and me may be "old hat" to the younger generation!) // Also, the fact that there is disagreement among the native RU speakers who provided answers here serves to emphasize the ambiguity of the phrase in Russian, like "taking to the streets" in English.

19:38 Dec 4, 2017 

correct about it, Russian "ukhod na ulitsu" can stand for both or mean either, i.e.

a) Run away altogether, or
b) Drink pivo and smoke cigarettes on the corner yet still come back home at night.

Therefore, yes, to use your own dichotomy, it is as ambiguous as the English taking to the streets (and that's what I meant by the nice play on words here, except the Russian doesn't have the same idiomatic double entendre to it that I called the extra bonus).

Compare this to the absolutely unambiguous "sbezhat' iz doma" (run away) or "shlyatsya po ulitsam" (which means beer and cigarettes, bad company and (oy, mama!) lax reproductive discipline:) - while at the same time spending your nights at home. Well, most of them, anyway.

Like I said, this "ukhod na ulitsu" has a funny newspeak feel about it. I mean, ukhod v podpol'ye - yes! Ukhod v monastyr - doubly so! Ukhod na front - where do I sign up? But ukhod na ulitsu? Well, I don't know.

19:20 Dec 4, 2017 

A child can live on the streets (spend considerable amount of time there) ot be raised by the streets (imbue its values)...or start a revolution (take to the streets). "Take to" also functions as "drawn to:" took to the streets like flies to honey.

19:10 Dec 4, 2017 

You're right, but that is not the only meaning, as my neighbor kids demonstrate. Adolescent delinquents can also "take to the streets" to buy or sell drugs. Hence the ambiguity of the phrase in English.

19:06 Dec 4, 2017 

"Take to the streets" is an idiom. This is what disaffected populace does before overthrowing a dictator.

18:36 Dec 4, 2017 

It is not helpful for Russian native speakers to post English definitions or examples of a word to help native speakers of English understand a Russian word! I am pretty sure that I have been speaking English for more years than any of you have been speaking Russian. I know what street children are, what vagrancy is, what a runaway child is, etc. What I don't know, is how to translate "уход на улицу"!

18:32 Dec 4, 2017 

Hi Misha. In English the phrase is ambiguous (as I wrote in my posting of the question), whereas I don't know whether it is or not in Russian. Ambiguity is fine, but only if there is ambiguity in both RU and EN. The twin boys who live next door to me, who are in 7th grade, "take to the streets" every day after school to play basketball and get away from the domineering mother. But when it's suppertime, they come home, and they are not neglected. God forbid the mother should "supervise" them while they play basketball (as much as she would probably like to).

18:20 Dec 4, 2017 

That was my own first impulse too. The original phrase is by no means an idiom, or even a regular way of saying it, hence the quotation marks. Plus as an extra bonus the English here would have a nice play on words that fits right in and that the original is sorely lacking.

Most of the translations suggested below are either not quite right or cannot be easily worked into the sentence to sound natural. And for crying out loud, no one calls them street children anymore unless it's about slumdog millionaires or some such.