5 Tips For the Best Russian Document Translation
There are always many differences between Russian and other languages, which might be problematic when handling Russian document translation. If you’re working on correspondence email or papers for work, even a small mistake might have unfavorable effects.
Our today’s blog post would provide you with 5 pieces of advice about Russian document translation to avoid common mistakes and carry on your business successfully.
#1. Keep a Watchful Eye for the Word Endings
Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which in current usage comprises 32 characters and it has six cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, and prepositional).
The ending of a noun in a sentence is determined by the case, the gender, and the number. For instance, in Russian, a single female word will finish differently from a single male noun, and both will have six alternative endings depending on the situation. It could be challenging to translate every noun you encounter if your dictionary or software glossary only recognizes one kind of ending.
You should either use quality assurance tools that comprehend Russian morphology or assume that all terms with different endings are correct as long as they have a similar beginning and a spellchecker does not flag them as mistakes. The quality you believe you are ensuring could be ruined if you insist that the translator follow all formal guidelines. You might also request that the translator make a dictionary of all the different ways that the Russian terminology can be used.
#2. Solve Whole Sentences is Preferable in Russian Document Translation
It might be tempting to break apart phrases, especially if you are having trouble, but this is incorrect with Russian document translation since Russian sentences have a different grammatical structure. Additionally, how the words are arranged can gradually change the tone or emotion that the author wants to convey. A very different sentence in English might result if you translate them incoherently.
As a result, it is quite risky to split words into chunks and translate each element independently since the final product might be extremely robotic. Despite the accuracy of the individual translations, the whole may not make sense.
Thus, in order to make phrases seem natural and fluid while translating from any language into Russian, sentences are occasionally turned inside out. The beginning of the translated Russian statement could correspond to the conclusion of the original English sentence and vice versa.
#3. Provide Context for the Russian Document Translation Provider
Even though it seems clear, not everyone is aware that there isn’t a single accurate translation of a term in dictionaries of other languages. When you just swap out English terms for Russian ones, some meaning is always lost, so what you see in dictionaries is only a “fuzzy match” of words in your language.
For example, in English, “mother-in-law” is a term used to refer to the mother of a spouse. However, the terms “mother of the husband” and “mother of the wife” are expressed differently in Russian. Since you need to know the gender of the individual whose mother-in-law is named, a dictionary won’t be much use in this situation.
What will happen if you don’t provide the background for the translator? He or she will have to hazard a guess by picking the most likely and safest translation. Obviously, the translator will make mistakes since they lack omniscience.
Moreover, there are various types of document translation, and you might have to find the best words which are suitable to the specific situation.
So always give appropriate reference materials to properly demonstrate the context of the text in order to guarantee that the translation of your website or software product does not contain such glaring errors. This is crucial in languages like Russian and others that have a wide range of word ends.
#4. Punctuation in Russian Document Translation
Russian grammar differs significantly from English in how commas, colons, periods, question marks, and other punctuation are used. Therefore, it’s not necessarily an error if a translated Russian sentence has different punctuation at the conclusion.
For instance, titles in English can conclude with a colon, whereas titles in Russian never do. Running text uses colons and dashes in very different ways. Russian commonly utilizes so-called chevrons («»), while English typically uses single or double quotation marks (‘’, “”).
One more notable example is the dollar symbol ($) must be placed after numerals and be separated by a space. Therefore 100 $ should be used instead of $100.
As the list of instances is endless, you need to learn more about Russian punctuation to have the correct Russian document translation.
#5. Give More Space for Russian Document Translation Text
The Russian translation might need room because it is typically longer than the English version.
Russian words typically comprise 7.2 symbols, compared to 5.2 symbols in English words. Because there are no articles and fewer prepositions in Russian, sentences have fewer words overall yet grow longer when translated from English to Russian. The number of characters will increase by 20% on average, however, some phrases may add up to 50% longer.
This might pose a lot of issues since you may need to modify your business papers and presentations for the Russian market. For example, you may need to add additional pages, increase the font size, give captions more room, etc.
If you want to fit the Russian document translation into the available space, you may have to condense it by shortening words or removing some of the meaning.
As you can see, translating into Russian frequently entails more than just text replacement. Redesigning your product’s user interface and documentation may also be necessary.
To Wrap Up
If you want to handle the Russian document translation for your business, you must remember the five necessary tips above and partner with professional translation agencies.
GTE Localize is one of the top options for you because we have a team of native linguists and dedicated localization experts, promising to offer high-quality Russian document translation services.
Drop us a line right now to book a free consultation and a free test.
