Business Translation in Russian Is Not That Easy

By: Rabia Tanveer Posted on Mon, 21-12-2015

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Russian language is not a piece of cake. It is a language of strong hearted people, it is the language of people who brave the bitter cold, and it is the language of… astronauts? Did you know that it is necessary for the people who want to work in space have to learn Russian? They have to learn it because in case of an emergency, the astronauts are given instructions in Russian.

Russian is a very colorful language. However, it is very difficult to translate. Almost every word in Russian language has multiple syllables, so when you are translating it, you need to be careful about it. For example, the Russian language has one word with one syllable and it is “angry.” Human translation service providers know the importance of such little nuisances and they pay special attention to it.

The Russian Language has more than 200,000 words.

The translators who provide Russian translation services, especially the ones who are new to this must know a few things. Because when a translator is providing business translation services, every single word needs to be translated accurately and properly. So, for that, keep these things in your mind while you are working on it:

  • Like many other languages, the Russian language has borrowed words too. However, there is a way to differentiate between the loan words and the native words. The borrowed words always start with an “a” or an “f.”
  • “замОк” and “зАмок” are often confused when a translating is translating nay business document. The word “замОк” means “lock”, whereas “зАмок” means a castle. So, next time, when you are translating a “sealed account” don’t translate it as “зАмок счет” which basically means “castle account.”
  • The Russian alphabets are a little quirky, some of the letters look scarily same while some of them look the same and have no meaning at all, like "ъ" and "ь.”
  • Also, when you are using verbs in any business report, remember that the verbs that donate any future action will be genderless whereas, the verbs that represent any past action will have gender quality with it. Same is the case with numbers 1 and 2, they both have genders, while the rest of the numbers in Russian don’t.

So keep these little nuggets of information in your mind when you are working on your next Russian Business Translation project.