Season's greetings

рождественская анимированная открытка Merry Christmas

Dear readers! Isn't it amazing how time flies? I think it's my third time sending to you my best wishes and I am so happy to do it!

Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate! I wish you lots of joy, smiles, laughter, blessings and precious moments that you will never forget! May 2013 be even better for you than 2012.

Olga

10 interesting facts about the Russian language

In my previous post I promised to follow with the interesting info about some other languages. So here are 10 facts about the Russian language which might be of interest to those who are studying it. If you would like to have this list in Russian, please contact me and I will send it to you by email. So, what do I find interesting about my native language?

1. Russian has about 500,000 words, but only 2,000-2,500 of them are used frequently. 100 most frequently used words make 20% of all written and oral speech. A high school graduate's vocabulary usually has 1,500 to 4,000 words. Those who have graduated from a higher educational institution normally have a richer vocabulary consisting of approximately 8,000 words.
2. It's compulsory for all astronauts in the international space station to learn Russian, so we can call it an international language of space :)

8 typical mistakes startup EN<>RU translators make

A few days ago I finished teaching the translation block at our Basic Course for startup translators. It was an unexpected turn as somebody else was supposed to do it. But the situation changed a few days before the New Year, so I had to stand in the gap.

While teaching this group and while watching other groups for the past 4 years, I noticed eight common mistakes startup EN<>RU translators make in their translation work:

1. Word for word translation and various calques
2. Punctuation and syntax mistakes
3. Wrong sentence structure (Theme–Rheme relationship)
4. Making unnecessary transformations and forgetting about them when they are necessary
5. Adding things that are absent in the original
6. Skipping parts of original text while translating
7. Not studying the topic of their translation
8. Forgetting to check their work before sending it

I strongly suspect that the above-mentioned mistakes aren't exclusively made by beginning translators in the EN<>RU language pa…

How to Reply To a Negative Feedback About Your Translation

We are humans and we screw up many times!

And receiving a negative feedback about your translation work if one of them.

As translation professionals, we work daily with people from different cultures and backgrounds. So, it is quite important to keep a level of etiquette while we do our business communication.

Whatever your years of experience or your educational background, there are times when daily life affects our business badly. It is how we react to these situations what makes a big difference between professional translation service providers and those who are not.

I was lucky enough when I started my translation career back in 2004 to read about the “A Complaint Is a Gift” business book and receive my training by a true professional Arabic translator.

My colleague taught me the tactics of a professional’s reply to a negative feedback and the book mentions the bright side of receiving a complaint about your work. If the client does not like your work, he can just move to anothe…

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