I just had the most rewarding experience in my translation career. I took part in a group translation of Spendvision strings.  There was no pressure at all. I was given two weeks to translate about 16, 000 words divided into two parts. I was given all possible reference materials and TM.

I should say that the first couple of days were not productive at all. I looked at the text and didn’t see it. It is my common mistake. Then I told myself not to be silly again and do it in a right way. So I studied the references and realised what it was all about. I got a feeling of the text. My eyes opened and I started seeing the material. And although I double checked almost every term as I didn’t want stupid mistakes, I enjoyed the process of translating. Every morning I got up and knew that I was going to continue my work and felt great. I tried to communicate with my manager and new pieces of helpful information kept coming. But I didn’t even need them anymore as I did my home work well. It took a lot of time and all my concentration skills, and my family had to suffer a bit but I did communicate with them through Skype and Google Talk and Blackberry in between.

When I finished translation I felt like I lost something. Now I had to give it to the editor. After the editor gave me a ‘good’ mark we discussed some possible changes and I found few more myself. The next step is proofreading.

Sometimes the strings look like puzzle to me and I found the way to handle them. I normally look around the text to be sure that I understand it right or I even do something else like push-ups or walk the dog and as soon as I am back I know what it is all about. So I never sit hours and think about something that escapes me. I better give it some time and leave it alone. Even better- to read the finished translation few days later, and then I see very clearly what that one awful piece means. Sometimes I change the whole string as my previous variant was not good enough.

You have a good feeling about the whole translation and you know that you did it right. No pressure at all – quality first. It brings satisfaction.

I accepted my bad experience and learnt from it. After that comes good experience and good feeling. When people trust you. It pays well too.

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While in the process of translation and English/Russian translation as well, we think about many aspects we need to take care of. When it is a document it should be strict to the point, precise and legible. Every time we address a specific audience. The audience looks for information. Imagine that you took care of everything, the style and grammar are close to immaculate and then comes something quite ridiculous, something that you didn’t even expect to occur in a document! Some Russian words could be used in different situations as well as in different spheres of life. If I use a common English word ‘member’, its Russian equivalent can cause an awkward or even improper situation. We would say in Russian:каждый думает в меру своей испорченности, which means literally everyone understands things according to his/her depravity.’ Member’ in Russian officially means a ‘member’ as well as a definite part of a man’s body. Anyway, speaking about introducing a new member in a legal agreement we can make a fatal mistake: people will think about an intercourse more than about membership! What I try to say is that we should think about that too; how to avoid such  situation.

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As soon as you start translating on a regular basis it is not a bad idea to start collecting interesting idioms in case that you do not use translation memory. “Idiom” comes from the Greek word idios, meaning “one’s own.” An idiomatic expression is one that “we understand among ourselves”.

The idios root shows up in idiosyncrasy, and, of course, idiot: one who keeps to himself, not quite ready for prime time or the public square.

Let’s take a few examples. If you translate from English into Russian “out of sight, out of mind” you will probably end up by “с глаз долой, из сердца вон”. If you try a computerised translation it could be something like “invisible idiot”. No comment is necessary.

Russians often say “как по маслу”, which means something like “easy going” or “going smoothly”, “without any problem”. If a business runs как по маслу, there is no need to worry!

Sometimes the language itself and its flow are important. You lose it and your translation work would be compared to inhaling a scent of a tea rose through a gas mask.

Sometimes the meaning and importance of words can be changed in translation; when a language itself is insignificant because a writer wants people to be attracted to the content of his or her work.

In this case a translator is a co-writer and is free to use his or her language means in order to convey the content in the best possible way. I had a smashing experience of being a part of a translating team working on a translation of a philosophical novel. Quite a reserved 3^rd person narration is fully focused on philosophical issues you should be fluent in and be able to render them in the target language using the right means. It is very easy to start just translating facts, events and consequences but it is not good enough… There are plenty of tiny details which help you to make it work, to make it look and sound as genuine as a source.

There appear to be some things that are untranslatable, and when converted to another language they seem kind of weird sounding, and because of that, they attract attention.

But let’s come back to idioms. Sometimes one little phrase gives translators trouble.

In Russian, English and probably every other existing language, physical gestures and facial expressions – sometimes metaphorical, sometimes actual – are used to convey emotional states. When English speakers use the similar expressions to convey the same emotions, translation is easy. Он почесал затылок (He scratched his head; he was puzzled). Он навострил уши (he paid close attention to what was being said).

Americans puff out their cheeks and expel air as a sign of exasperation, denoted by the words “whew” or “phew.” They also pout. In Russian, this is надувать губы (literally, to puff out one’s lips).

Надувать щёки is a pose of proud self-importance. In English, we’d probably say: to be high and mighty. If we were to convey this by a physical gesture, we might say: to puff out our chests. Or:  be puffed up. Or maybe even: swagger.

It’s a mysterious craft… It emerges from so many things…

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Russian translators are perfectly familiar with the controversies of Russian spelling rules. Nowadays the phonetic and grammatical principles are applied to define a complicated set of spelling rules. Some are related to the ‘relationship’ of series of vowels to hard/soft pairs of consonants. Voiced consonants are devoiced word-finally unless the next word begins with a voiced obstruent. Russian features a general assimilation of voicing and palatalization. The process of voicing assimilation applies across word boundaries when there is no pause between words. To be aware of those rules is crucial for a translator to avoid confusion and embarrassing mistakes.
Well, I have no intention today to explain all those rules as for a Russian translator they are pretty evident, and besides we remember the language and not the rules. We just use it, that’s all. But in my experience I still have some accidents in using commas or not; which punctuation mark belongs here or there.

Granted, in some “mechanical” cases commas are used in English where they aren’t in Russian, including: certain date renditions (“My daughter was born June 17, 1993.”); within large numbers (1,700,000); to introduce direct quotation (“He shouted, ‘Boo!’”); and in friendly letter salutations (“Dear friends,”).

In English, dependent clauses starting with “that,” “what,” “if,” “where,” “when” and the like DON’T want commas before them. And “because” doesn’t need a comma before it but “потому что” often does.

A subject clause, even a lengthy one, ordinarily doesn’t take a comma after it – although its translation into Russian probably will.

The “which” which starts a restrictive subordinate clause doesn’t need a comma. The point: a который clause in English should not produce a comma reaction.

So for me it means that every time I want to put a comma automatically I don’t do that. How cool is that? Although it works in English and in Russian I just have to follow my intuition.

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Translating industry is found healthy. It means that demand for translators and interpreters is expected to grow by 15% in the coming year as globalization, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide green movement spur demand for information in myriad languages.

E-mail, Skype and other technologies have opened the door to cross-cultural communications, but they alone cannot bridge the language gap.

I perfectly realize that there are a lot of us translators there. But there are quite a few real professionals. It’s not enough to simply speak another language. There is a wealth of knowledge and background you need in your area of specialty.

Translation is far more than words and also far more than the context of words and phrases. Very many different issues are involved. And the spelling has to be impeccable.

Some businesses try to save on translation fees by using free computer programs, but those don’t offer the quality needed to avoid stilted and often nonsensical results.
Slavic grammar is complex, and developed differently than in other Indo-European languages, which means that sentences have to be construed in a very different manner.

The Russian language is full of words of intimacy or endearment. First, the Russian national character is expressive and emotional, and one aspect of it is that it has so many diminutive adjectives and nouns; second, the language itself offers a variety of ways to be expressive and emotional. One of them is suffixes. Russian is sometimes called the language of suffixes.

Russian suffixes express an extremely wide range of emotions and attitudes. They can produce words that are caressing, diminutive, familiar, vulgar or contemptuous.

Polish linguist Anna Wierzbicka studied the way Russian suffixes work with Russian personal names. She says the meanings expressed by names with suffixes are so rich and complex they cannot be represented by simple labels such as “affectionate” or “scornful”. Some are ambivalent.

The suffix -ka (as in Lenka) may express familiarity or “anti-respect” but it becomes diminutive and even caressing in Lenochka.

The suffix –ik/ok is used with diminutive connotation when used with masculine names, e.g. Vladik or Sashok.  People use it when they talk to small boys and till they approach adolescence.

In English, suffixes are rarer, and they are less expressive. Most commonly, standard short forms such as Tom or Bill are used with regard to people one knows well. Sometimes, such short forms are preferred by the person and are used officially like Jimmy or Billy.

Translators of fiction face enormous problems rendering the expressive range conveyed by Russian suffixes. The mysterious craft of translation: it has to emerge from the whole — one must see it as a whole, and love it as a whole.

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I would say a good translation is just like a good book; the process and means are not important. What is important is a result.

In the burgeoning world of translators and interpreters it’s all about the niche.

“It’s not just having the language skill. It’s also having the expertise in the subject matter,” said Dahlberg, whose story was striking enough that Nicholas Hartmann, president of the American Translators Assn., retold it during the group’s 50th convention in New York last month.

I am pretty sure that I would leave the convention completely a different person and a better translator, if I was one of the lucky attendees. For four days, some 2,300 attendees networked, traded stories and listened in on workshops and seminars at a Times Square hotel.

That’s 1,000 more than attended last year’s conference — evidence that even in this economy, the industry is healthy.

Hartmann said demand for translators and interpreters is expected to grow by 15% in the coming year as globalization, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide green movement spur demand for information in myriad languages.

E-mail, Skype and other technologies have opened the door to cross-cultural communications, but they alone cannot bridge the language gap.

It’s not enough to simply speak another language. There is a wealth of knowledge and background you need in your area of specialty.

“Translation is far more than words,” said Hartmann, who specializes in translating German patents. It requires him to understand not only the context of words and phrases, but also the technical and legal issues involved. And his spelling has to be impeccable.

The slightest error can cause extraordinary embarrassment.

If somebody is going to make a joke he better makes sure it translates well.
If a leader makes a joke that doesn’t elicit laughs, a good interpreter will say in the listening audience’s language, “It’s a joke that does not translate — please laugh.”

You wouldn’t translate something like “God bless you all” to the atheist audience to avoid embarrassment.

Despite the fact that niche translators and interpreters are “everybody’s lifeline,” they remain in short supply, particularly in U.S. government agencies.

The FBI said its translation workload had doubled since the Sept. 11 attacks. Hospitals, courts, schools and other institutions are struggling to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population.

But few people have the training it takes to do what can be an excruciatingly difficult job. I am not talking about weekends, but sometimes we have to translate or edit a large document in no time which means working many hours straight.

Some businesses try to save on translation fees by using free computer programs, but those don’t offer the quality needed to avoid stilted and often nonsensical results.
The mysterious craft of translation: it has to emerge from the whole — one must see it as a whole, and love it as a whole.

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The Russian language as the most geographically spread language in the world is spoken both in Europe and Asia by more than 170 million people living in countries like Russia, Moldavia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kirgizstan and Uzbekistan etc. So finding a Russian Translator often becomes an imperative for many businesses, which are keen to trade in that region.

Basically, the Russian is one of the three surviving East Slavic languages from the Indo-European language group; Ukrainian and Belarusian being the two others. The language has a long history, its earliest traces are found in Novgorod in 11th century.

Though the language seems to have a heritage of almost 10 centuries, the written Russian started to gain significance only in 17th century during the reign of the Peter the Great.  It is during his reign that a new alphabet was introduced and the new language started to develop.

Later, famous 19th century writer Aleksander Pushkin developed this language further. In recent times, the language has become almost identical with the spoken Russian. In fact, during that time, the Russian language and literature flourished magnificently in the hands of world class writers like Tolstoy, Dostoyevskiy and Gogol. The Russian language was the only official language during both Russian Empire as well as the USSR.

However, these days when the world has become a global village, the culture and language of Russia can no longer remain restricted in that country alone. This is why the Russian translators are eagerly looked for. “It’s not just having the language skill. It’s also having the expertise in the subject matter,” said Dahlberg, whose story was striking enough that Nicholas Hartmann, president of the American Translators Assn., retold it during the group’s 50th convention in New York last month. There is a wealth of knowledge and background you need in your area of specialty. “It’s so easy to communicate, but once you find someone you want to communicate with, you find they don’t speak your language,” Hartmann said. And it’s not enough to simply speak another language. “Translation is far more than words,” said Hartmann. It requires understanding of not only the context of words and phrases, but also the technical and legal issues involved. And the spelling has to be impeccable.

It is not an easy business to find a good Russian translator who can meet all the above mentioned demands. References and certificates can help you to find one, but experience is crucial.

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There are few interesting tendencies to observe in today’s post.

Everybody is following the collisions in the web. Two media: internet and publishing business are watching each other and waiting for any blunder from each other’s side to grasp the situation and act immediately. If there is an article missing in a magazine; there is an immediate campaign on internet to publish the notorious article in translation, so that the readers can still read it.

So you can see the words ‘Russian translation’ everywhere nowadays. Russia achieved the pick of its popularity; I mean there is a lot of interest in what happens in Russia. It arouses many questions. So I guess, that Russian translators, like myself, are facing a new era.

And another tendency.

As the world gets smaller, readers are turning toward foreign fiction to understand other viewpoints. Far from being just the province of small independent publishing houses, literature in translation has become a mainstream phenomenon, with books that inspire huge bidding wars and literary debates.

There are very talented works of today’s young Russian writers, who speak modern Russian life to the world. And their stories are not lost in translation. Smart translation.

It is nice to believe, that people’s interest in Russian modern literature is growing. So the question is: can a philosophical novel, exploring the question of whether good can exist without evil, like “The Master and Margarita” be translated in such a way that it reads smoothly and fluidly like a bestseller?

Can we talk about a new translation, when, each phrase used in it appeared easily accessible and had a good rhythm. The characters are readily distinguishable from one another.

And the last but not the least. The top 10 countries ranked by Common Sense Advisory’s report “Countries That Matter Most Online in 2009″: U.S., Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Canada, Spain, China and Australia. The top 10 languages that provide the biggest bang for a business’ buck are: English, Japanese, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Simplified Chinese, Portuguese, Korean, Russian and Swedish.

Even in far New Zealand there is a growing interest in the Russian phenomenon. I happened to be one of the first readers of the science fiction novel where the author tries to penetrate the Russian psyche in order to understand the modern history of the western mankind. The translation of this talented book would become a highlight of my carrier as a translator.

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Things Computers Can’t Do

- Language Translation

In the early computer days they started doing a research on language translation by computer for US government intelligence agencies mainly to translate everything that was being written in Russian. It came out as a failure.

With the present desktop computer and the default language translation service of Microsoft Word 2007, the conversion to Russian and back comes out a bit closer. That represents a half-century of progress.

With release of Ruby and Sapphire Guides on the coloured stone commission website the professional translation of those guides was strongly urged by the commission into the languages like Arabic, Chinese and Russian. If a gemstone dealer or gemologist would collaborate with a professional Russian translator, it would make the life of gemologists as well as dealers and antiquers much easier. People would always love gem stones, but they want to know what they buy. I am a professional translator, so I bought a guide in India. Now I am much wiser.

Russia is the largest country and is rich in natural resources that include oil, minerals, natural gas, coal, timber. While the population of Russia is diverse, Russian is by far the predominant language. With a decade of economic growth that has expanded its middle class, infrastructure improvements and manufacturing there will be a continued demand for Russian translator.

To meet the needs of an increasingly globalized economy, a professional Russian translator offers her services, including the translations of device manuals, user guides, product instructions and patents.

If your collecting (as an antiquer) or business activities involve working with people in other countries, like Russia, avoid being laughed at and do not depend on Internet computerized translation services. Do hire a professional Russian translator, preferably a native speaker of the target language.

To take advantage of the opportunities that Russia presents, you will need a Russian language translation company with fluent bilingual translation professionals – Smart-Translation.

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