It’s not easy to be a claimed translator. You have to be ready to work hard, many hours, be efficient, cheap and deliver better quality than software can do. To do it all alone is a huge responsibility.

A couple of weeks ago I translated a rather specific information about MS edition. I was very cautious and double checked every single term/ word/phrase. After I finished the work I found a very helpful ‘how to’ article where I learnt that to be on the safe side it’s crucial to discuss every point you doubt about with a client and producer. A translation has to address a final customer. The rule is: how many customers – so many different rules. Every target language has different versions. Not only professionally but also environmentally. Every environment has its own specifics. I am supposed to know or at least be aware of. It means a close cooperation between a translator, client and producer.

We speak about Russian language here which is different in different parts of Russia and former Soviet republics. We speak about modernization process in all life spheres with its huge impact on the language.

My point is in backup. It’s good to have a second pair of eyes and a second opinion or as we say in Russian: одна голова хорошо, а две лучше. It’s even better if those two heads work together and in one direction.

In my situation I learnt that colleges not always look in the same direction and the best quality doesn’t mean the best cooperation. Communication is everything.

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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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I watch the developments of the situation on the translation scene. From one side, there is a growing demand in professional translators, especially Russian translators; from the other side, the rates are growing down. The reason partially is in possibility to grab a student from the street to cut expenses. I wonder where the boundaries are? And what happens to a professional translation?

In Scotland recently translation companies have undercut market rates to win the contracts to supply interpreters to Scottish courts and other government services. A court interpreter said the new conditions meant interpreters were effectively being forced to work for less than the minimum wage. It takes many years of practice and training to get to a level that is sufficiantly competent to carry out intricate work in a high pressured environment like court. A lot of interpreters and translators are forced out of the profession because of the low rates of pay.

For better value for money and greater efficiency a professional translator should be engaged.

I, as a professional English Russian translator, am supposed to provide a high quality translation, carry out all the stages of translation myself and as a result to receive less than a minimum payment. I think, OK, at least I have an experience and I am in demand. But I would rather take part in projects for non-profit organisations for free. At least I have a feeling of fulfillment and commitment. And I do what I personally love – translating from English to Russion and from Russian to English.

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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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Translation is never an exact science.

There are few things more silly than a tourist in a foreign country with a foreign language dictionary trying to communicate with someone in their native tongue. It took years of study to master these languages and it takes practice to maintain them.

As a student I found out that there is no such thing as a word for word translation.

One must learn the proper idioms and then render English thought into Russian thought and vice-versa. Every language has unique grammar and syntax. German has a precise word order that accounts for time, place, and manner. However Latin and Russian, for example have loosely structured word order because case endings on each word determine the function of the word in the sentence.

Then there’s the trouble of conveying meaning. What good is an exact translation when the actual words fail to convey the intended meaning?

A statistical analysis is often of no help.

In any text or document, a statistical analysis will show that definite and indefinite articles, prepositions, and conjunctions will show up more frequently than nouns or verbs. It is simply the nature of English language. The statistical search for the true meaning of a word in this case offers no value. In such a phrase as “face to face” you have  two nouns, one of which is the object of a preposition. In languages that use case endings to determine the function of a word (such as Latin, Russian) in a sentence would not be readily apparent from a dictionary search. It’s like trying to look up a conjugated verb in a dictionary when what you really need to know is its infinitive. Using an online lexicon without a high degree of instruction in the language is almost useless.

How do juries choose between translations of very different kinds of books? Do they look for those that are unusually faithful to the original or for those that read as though they were originally written in the new language?

Translating plays must present a different set of problems from translating poetry. The dialogue has to sound authentic and yet has to convey more meaning than real speech does.

The question is often asked: “What got lost in translation?” Even if you’ve learned another language so well you can translate it into your mother language, can you ever know the nuances and the emotions associated with words and phrases that a child learns instinctively?

They say that Shakespeare is all about language, but his plays have always been revered in other tongues.

It is all about the feeling, something incomprehensible, I guess.

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There is nothing like working in another language and, because I am bilingual and can move back and forth, that allowed me to look at the Russian version with new eyes.

I would like to  talk about cultural aspect in translation today.

As a human translator I go from moment to moment, from revelation to revelation and grow less uncertain as I know how versatile the language is and the task of a human translator is to find the best possible compromise.

The most relevant part of my background is that I’ve always been fascinated by language. For me a novel turn of phrase or a well-sculpted sentence can be literally thrilling.

How playful, poignant, and convergent languages are! Every translation is a form of travel – to another place, to another time, to other worlds, to other people’s shoes, or to other people’s minds.

The word ‘idiom’ comes from Greek and means ‘one’s own’. An idiomatic expression is one that we understand among ourselves. Idioms are turns of phrases or expressions unique to a language. They are extensions of metaphors and similes, and often become immortalized as clichés. While they add flair to daily speech, they can also be problematic to a foreign speaker. The expressions are so tied within their own cultural connotations they sometimes sound absurd in translation.

We don’t pay them much attention, but idioms are more important than we usually realize. Linguists believe we have as many idioms and stock phrases in our long-term memory as we have words. They classify both words and idioms as lexemes (i.e., self containing units for conveying meaning). And idioms turn out to be a crucial piece of evidence in the surprisingly heated and ongoing debate on the evolution of language.

I am not pulling your leg or, as Russians would say: I am not hanging noodles on your ears!

A computerised English to Russian translation of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is ‘invisible idiot’.

As a human Russian translator I need to look for evidence in linguistics, anthropology, psychology, all of which adds to the inaccurate view of human reason.

Unless you are given a green light to a free interpretation of a given book.

Russian translation of some lyrics often diverge dramatically from the original version. While translating foreign songs a translator tries to create a literary story from the simplistic original text in the tradition of Russian romance where the lyrics always relate a story.

The decision to make Russia the market focus is a recognition of Russia’s rising clout in international publishing market. Russia now stands alongside the United States, China and the UK in world rankings. As a result a real school of translation will be created. Those who graduated with Russian literature and languages degrees, like myself, went to work in the business, where was a huge need for translators. So, there is an idea of fostering a new generation of translators (aged 30 and 40) to close a gap in literary Russian English translation. Academia Rossica awards the only translation prize in the world, which specifically recognizes excellence in translation from Russian into English.

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It’s easy for us as English speakers to forget, that the internet is not simply a place for English speakers. WebPages are available in French, German, Russian, Chinese, and Korean – in fact, any language you care to name will have websites displayed in it. The reason, this is not immediately obvious to us, is because of how we tend to find our information online, and this gives us an interesting insight into who is doing a translation of a website from English to Russian.

Roughly 90% of first time visitors to a website will make their way there through a search in Google or one of the other popular search engines. This statistic gives the search engines a staggering amount of influence over the way we view the online world. One of the reasons, that this is so important, is that a search engine gains or loses its popularity based on the relevance of the results it returns. One of the first things that will make a search engine see a webpage as irrelevant is, if it is not in the same language as the search was performed.

Those people online, who want the most exposure to their websites, are beginning to understand that in order to get the most eyeballs looking at their page, they need to provide multilingual options. So, who is doing a translation from English to Russian? Put simply – smart webmasters who recognize that for a small amount of invested time or money they can increase their online reach significantly! While Russian ranks well behind English in terms of the number of searches that are performed each month, it is still a significant and largely untapped source of traffic for many sites.

Many Russians are actually already doing some translation of websites themselves. Knowing that the vast majority of information on the Internet is in English, they will translate their query from Russian to English, search in an English speaking search engine and then translate the top pages the searched query returns from English to Russian. Can you see how desperately these Russian speakers want your content that they are prepared to go through that process to get it? Wouldn’t it be many times easier, if you were able to save them the trouble and provide a Russian speaking version to your website for them to search in their own language? And finally, don’t you think that someone who finds a Russian version of your page will appreciate your extra effort in providing the English to Russian translation for them, and be more likely to buy from you or support your website?

If you consider the increase in potential visitors, and the gratitude of the new visitors to your site that you have taken the time to convert your English Webpage into Russian to assist them, then providing Russian copy on your pages should really be a simple choice for you. You can either ignore it and not bother with the extra visitors to your site, or you can provide a lure for foreign language search engine traffic.

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