Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Learn Russian Swear (bad) Words in Dialogue

You will not learn the language if you don't know cultural things like swear words and bad phrases, slang after all. This is why I decided to give you an opportunity to see how you can use these words in a real situation. Here you can find one of the dialogues I have found on Russian translation website.
I am using as many commonly used words and phrases as I can think of. I included Russian version plus a Russian transliteration so that you could read and pronounce these swear words and phrases. I also put some guidelines for how offensive each word/phrase is. I used a scale from 1 to 3 to show how offensive this or that bad word is.
This short story is about two friends who are watching a sport game.
If you would like to find more dialogues, you can find them on this page: Learn Russian Language. We also have Russian Phone Translation phrases at your request.

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Visiting a friend watching the game (on Russian TV).


1) Блять3, ты все еще смотришь эту игру? ::: Blyat', ty vse eshe smotrish' etu igru?:::Shit, Are you still watching this game?


Блять – noun: two meanings: slut, and you say it when you are expressing yourself. English equivalent – shit, fuck. You can use this word only in this form.


2) Сборище долбаебов3. Они вдувают2. Играют как девочки. ::: Sborishe dolbaebov. Oni vduvayut. Igrayut kak devochki. ::: What a bunch of shit! They suck! They play like sissies!


Долбаебов – singular – долбаёб – a very strong bad word; meaning - a dumb person. You can use this word to anybody whom you don't like or you are a veeeery good friend of.


1) Кто? Команда А? Но капитан нормалёк1 играет. :::: Kto? Komanda A? No kapitan normalyok igraet. :::: Who? "Team A"? But that captain is good!


Нормалёк – derived from a word Нормально - English equivalent - normal.


2) Ты это видел? Осёл2. Это даже и не пахло фолом. Ty eto videl? Osyol. Eto dazhe I ne pahlo folom. :::: You see that? Foul!? That was not a freaking foul!


Осёл – another way to say that a person is not a smart guy, you can't tell this to a female, used only for men. Original meaning - an animal – dunkie.


1) Арбитр или косой1 или слепой1. Arbitr ili kosoj ili slepoj. :::: The ref has a screw loose, or he's blind.


2) Знаменитый игрок еще ни разу не забил. Меня это бесит1. Znamenityj igrok eshe ni razu ne zabil. Menya eto besit. :::: "Famous player" hasn't scored yet! I can't stand it!


Бесит – imperative form – бесить – English version for annoy. He annoys me – Он меня бесит. A very common way of expressing your feelings toward somebody. Popular among teenagers.


1)Забудь, давай лучше посмотрим бейсбол или теннис. Zabud', davaj luchshe posmotrim beisbol ili tenis. :::: Never mind. Let's see some baseball or tennis instead.


2) Забей2. Достало уже. Айда1 карты поиграем. Zabej. Dostalo uzhe. Aida karty poigraem. ::::: Screw it. Enough! Let's go play cards (specific card or board game?).

extra stuff:

1) Но ведь это Кубок Мира. No ved' eto kubok mira. :::: but this is the World Cup!


2) Насрать2. Хочешь посмотреть как они вдуют2? Nasrat'. Hochesh' posmotret' kak oni vduyut? ::::: Whatever! You wanna watch them get clobbered?


Насрать – imperative form. Litterally – to take shit. Pretty rude verb. Became popular in 1995 (approximately).


3) Но мы все еще можем их сделать2. No my vse eshe mozhem ih sdelat'. :::::: But we can still pull it off!


Сделать – imperative form – делать. English translation - make. Я тебя сделаю – translation - to win. I can't find an English equivalent. May be there is no one.


4) Не теряй времени. Ты теряешь своё время. Ne teyaj vremeni. Ty teryaesh svoyo vremya. :::::: Don't waste your time. You are wasting your time.


5) Арбитр обкуренный1. Arbitr abkurennyj. ::::::: The referee is on drugs!


Обкуренный – adj. From verb – Курить - To Smoke.


6) вратарь..... () ..... не следит за игрой ::::: vratar' ne sledit za igroj ::::::::: the goalie.... (and other potential positions, like refereee!) ...isn't paying attention.


7) Гол. Gol. ::::::: Score!


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Friday, March 7, 2008

Russian Letter Translation Research

So, an eternal question is — Should you go with a free translation tools, cheap translation services, professional translation services charging slightly more that a cheap one, or with an expensive service of some translation conglomerate?

Well we also wanted to know the answer, so our sponsors helped us on our research in this field...
We prepared a medium size letter in Russian to send to some Russian translation companies offering different prices for Russian letter translation service.

We googled for Russian translation and got a lot of results. Here is a screenshot for you.




OK, so on the top of the page you can see Free translators. They will give you a rough idea of what is written in your letter....It's your choice....

Then goes a Russian Translation service company which offers a Russian letter translated for four cents per word. We sent them our letter. The response came as soon as within 45 minutes, which was a record. Our linguists analyzed the translation and it got 4.5 out of 5, which I think is pretty high score.

Then I found a website of a person from Ukraine who was offering translation as well. The price was two cents per word. I sent a translation and got a response 11 hours later (I figured that was because of the time difference between Ukraine and USA). Well I got my translation and it seems that a lot of words were misunderstood by a translator, or he was using a machine translation. The overall work got 2.8 points.

Then we found a website which charged ten cents per word for a letter translation!!!! Wow, that's a lot!!! But we still wanted to try it out. Well we got a response from the website pretty fast in about an hour and a half. The quality of the translation was great for a book translation. This means that a Russian person would think that Pushkin, or Dostoevsky wrote the letter to her/him. The language was old fashioned. It seems that the translator has never been to the US and does not understand the culture. So they got 3.6 points.

I hope very much that this research will help you choose the right translation services for your needs.

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