Russian

Russian

By McElroy Translation,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA

quotes[at]mcelroytranslation.com
http://www.mcelroytranslation.com/

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McElroy is continuing this series of interviews that highlight some of the characteristics of languages used in doing business globally. This month, we look at Russian.

Map of the Russian language

Map courtesy of Wikipedia

What are some pitfalls specific to Russian to avoid that a client should be aware of when translating into this language?

Transliterations, both in “general” and in special texts. For a well-known example, “killer” should not be translated as “киллер” but rather as “убийца” (an existing Russian word). For another example, “cystic fibrosis” is not “кистозный фиброз” but rather “муковисцидоз” or “фиброзно–кистозная дегенерация.” And for a third example, “mortgage” should be translated as “ипотека” (an existing Russian banking term) rather than transliterated as “мортгедж.”

New Russian terms. Sometimes, there is no direct single Russian equivalent of even a well-known English term. It is advisable to explain the meaning of the English term rather than invent or use a Russian semantically different “equivalent.” For example, there is a legal semantic difference between a “refugee” and an “asylee,” while quite often both have been translated as “беженец.” For another example, “claim” (in the context of insurance or in a different context of unemployment benefits) should almost always be explained to a Russian audience.

Biblical references. Translation of Biblical references (including names) should be done cautiously and in accordance with the canonical Russian Bible.

What are characteristics of Russian that are unique or different from English and/or other languages?

Word order in Russian sentences is free, unlike in English.

Punctuation rules in Russian (especially the use of commas) are more rigid than in English.

Capitalization in Russian is rather limited; usually only the first word in a multi-word name should be capitalized.

The English word “you” when referring to one person may mean either a formal polite reference to this person (“вы”) or much less formal (“ты”). These two kinds of reference are semantically very different. The translator should look at the context.

It became a bad habit to capitalize “вы” (“you”) and its derivatives everywhere in Russian documents. The Russian grammar permits such capitalization only in personally addressed (private) letters rather than in generic documents.

The absence of (definite as opposed to indefinite) articles in Russian requires the translator to find an appropriate way to express the relevant semantics of the English articles in Russian. As an example, consider Hayek’s paper “The theory of complex phenomena” (as opposed to “A theory...”).

Relate an example or two where you found a website page or form difficult to use because it was poorly localized. How might a business lose money, prestige, or incur legal risk due to this bad translation?

Illiterate translations. Quite a few Russian sites have translated “Duke University” either as “Графский университет” or as“Герцогский университет” - thus ruining their credibility. A simple search using yandex.ru resulted in at least 4 references to “Графский университет” and several hundred references to "Герцогский университет.” These are not just news sites, but, for example, even the site of the famous Moscow “Fiztech” (Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology): Click Here.

See also above on the translation of “M.D.”

If possible, provide one example of a particular phrase or concept that only a properly qualified, professional translator would be able to correctly communicate.

Quite a few metaphors in American English texts (both general and technical) use baseball terms. Since baseball is not well-known in Russia, these terms cannot be translated literally, and the translator has to find an adequate "baseball-free" equivalent in Russian while retaining the semantics.

How do these characteristics make it important to use properly qualified, professional translators?

A properly qualified translator should clearly understand the semantics of the source text, the source and the target environments (including the target audience), and the linguistic characteristics of both languages. This cannot be automated.

Do you know examples where translation or localization mistakes have occurred with Russian, such as problems with text expansion, date/time formats, counting errors, character encoding, etc., or mistakes with the translation itself?

In addition to those mentioned above, date formats are different: in Russian DD/MM/YY is used, and this may cause errors.

Different character encodings: there are several Russian encodings not all of which are supported by all mailers (such as AOL). I have even encountered an opinion (wrong!) that Russian encodings on a PC and on a Macintosh are different and incompatible.

I have edited a few medical translations where the term “contaminated” (e.g., needle) was translated as “infected” (“зараженная” or “инфицированная”) incorrectly narrowing the original meaning.

Information on “Sharps containers” (containers for used medical needles (and other sharp medical instruments, such as IV catheters)) was included in a Russian site (http://www.dialand.ru/basik/products/lancet/sharps.htm) under the title “уничтожители иголок” (meaning “needle destructors”). This title is not only clumsy but also clearly misleading because such containers do not destruct anything (“disposal” is not the same as “destruction”).

“M.D.” is not the same as "доктор медицинских наук” (Doctor of Medical Sciences) [see the incorrect translation at the popular site multitran.ru] because in Russia in order to get to get the “доктор медицинских наук” degree it is necessary to defend a profound Doctoral Thesis (the PhD is usually a prerequisite for that) and to publish a monograph.

In a medical trial document, “a blood clot disorder may be developing” was incorrectly translated as “возможность развития нарушения тромбообразования.” The correct translation would be “возможность развития тромбоза.”