T4K - what it means in Russian language

I tried googling "t4k" to find out what it means in Russian language. But at my great surprise there was no answer to my question. I chatted with my old friend who is a Russian English translator and he used this T4K at the end of our conversation. And the next day I decided to ask him about this word. He said that T4K is an abbreviation that stands for "to4ka" or "tochka", and "4" stands for "ch" which is ч in Cyrillic alphabet. Tochka means Period. And people started to use this "expression" after one old Russian cartoon - Derevnya v Prostokvashino. Actually they used "t4k" in telegrams back in an old days.

Isn't it an interesting etymology of this abbreviated word?

International Translator Day

Today is the 30th of September and all translators and interpreters across the world celebrate their professional holiday - International Day of Translator and Interpreter.

Why September 30? Here is the answer - it's the day of death of St. Jerome in 419 or 420. This saint translated the Bible (Vulgate) to Latin language. He is an "official" the patron of interpreters and translators. This holiday was started in 1991 by the International Federation of Translators. More and more people celebrate this holiday (I heard a comment on the news about this translation day).

In 2004, the festival was celebrated under these words: «Translation - the basis of multilingualism and multiculturalism». - which I agree with. «Interpreters are in the heart of communication. As agents of foreign ideas and actions, they form part of a world in which we live. Translation is therefore a determinant of multilingual communication, and at the same time it symbolizes the openness of the people and democracy. » - I think these words are very wise. And hopefully the work of translators and interpreters will be valued more than it was in the past.

In 2005, this festival was celebrated with this slogan: «The responsibility of an interpreter before the profession and society». In 2006, it was celebrated under the following slogan: «A lot of languages - one profession». In 2007, it was celebrated under the slogan: «Do not shoot at courier».

In 2008, the International Day of the translator notes under the slogan: «Terminology: Words have meaning».

In other words, respect Translators and Interpreters! - it's a tough job.

Citations and dates were taken and non certified translated from an open source site.

Conference or 3 way calls to Russia got more expensive

Conference or 3-way telephone calls to Russia are getting more expensive if you order them from companies.
Does it worth it to set up a conference call yourself? The answer is YES if you know how to do it and if you want to save some money. Of course, it's better to pay just for the over the phone translation rather than for the 3 way connection plus a translation. Usually a translation company tends to benefit from people who think that making a connection is something extraordinary and you have to be tech savvy. Some companies are taking advantage of that and charging their clients way more than it really costs. For example, one online dating company which makes calls to Russia and Ukraine charges around 5 bucks per minute! It's ridiculous.
The right price for a connection of three people is about $1. This is what it is all about. International calls are not that expensive.
If you are interested in knowing more how to make conference calls, you can google for "How to make a conference call to Russia or Ukraine or Belarus." You can first try to connect yourself and your friend here in the US and after you succeed, you can try connecting internationally. Good luck!

Christie's Russian Website Translation Mistakes

Two weeks ago one of our professional Russian English translators who is a big fan of Christie's auctions found out that their website have a Russian version of the site.
And she let them know that the translation was done very poorly with a lot of syntax and orthographic mistakes. (Just a little note to everyone: If you would like to avoid translation services like that, you should be using Certified Russian translation instead of just regular translation services.) The page I'm talking about is here: christies.com/features/welcome/russian
I also noticed the same kind of mistakes on two other pages: christies.com/features/welcome/russian/buy.aspx and this one christies.com/features/welcome/russian/sell.aspx (Copy and paste into your browser these links to check them out).

On the images below you can clearly see all the mistakes I'm talking about. Of course, if you do understand Russian language.


The image was kindly provided to me by Russian Telephone Translation website.

As far as me, I think that every certified Russian translator can correct those mistakes and/or do a professional English Russian website translation of Cristie's website. I think that a well-respected auction and a brand name like Christie's should have a perfect image.

Here are more images from their website. I marked some obvious mistakes. But of course there are a lot more. You just need to read it carefully and you'll find all of them. I think there are from 13 to 25 mistakes overall on the Russian version of Christie's web site.



All images were provided to this blog under the copyright from Russian Telephone Translation website. All images are copyrighted and can be used only after a written consent from the owner.

Happy Birthday in Russian Language - How to Make a Wish (audio)

Today I am going to teach you how to wish a Happy Birthday in Russian.

So, if need to make a Russian translation for a friend who has a birthday, then read on.

Russian translation for a HAPPY BIRTHDAY is С ДНЁМ РОЖДЕНИЯ - Russian transliteration for this phrase would be - S DNJOM RAZHDENIJA. You can listen to the audio recording of the phrase "happy birthday" in Russian below:


Or you can also say Поздравляю с Днем Рождения - transliteration would be as follows: Pazdravlyaju s dnjom razhdenija and the English for that would be Congratulations with your birthday (I know that it is not a very popular way to say it in English, but believe me, it is very common to wish a happy birthday in Russian).

Here is how it sounds like in Russian:



If you are willing to wish something more, then here are some ideas for you:

I wish you happiness - Я желаю тебе счастья - Ya zhelayu tebe schast'ja.
I wish you health - Я желаю тебе здоровья - Ya zhelayu tebe zdarov'ya.

Here is a good example of a birthday greeting for your friend:

Я желаю тебе крепкого здоровья!
Я желаю тебе долгих и счастливых лет жизни!
И самое главное, Я желаю тебе счастья - безмерного счастья! каждый день!

The Russian to English Translation of this birthday greeting will be as follows:

I wish you a long and successful life.
I wish you excellent health.
Most importantly, I wish you happiness - without measure - every day!

I hope that this post will help you to wish a Happy B-Day to one of your friends in Russian!

Easy to Learn Russian Words

According to a recent survey held on one of the Russian translation service websites, these are the most popular Russian language words and short sentences people are looking for in search engines like google.

PLEASE - Russian translation for that word is POZHALUISTA or ПОЖАЛУЙСТА.

Here is a usage example for you: Can you PLEASE forward me that Russian certified translation today?

The stress should be on the second syllable which is ZHA.

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The next easy to learn word is

How are you? - Kak Djela? or Как Дела?

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Good - Harasho - Хорошо.

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Happy Birthday in Russian will be S dnyom Razhdeniya - С днём рождения!

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Super in Russian is going to be Super - Супер - almost the same like in English=) - so this is the easiest to learn Russian word.

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Bye - Paka - Пока

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Next time I will try to compose a list of useful words for special occasion like a birthday.
So, see you soon.

Certified Russian English Translation - Another point of view

In my last post I wrote about Certified Russian Translation service. Today I have found another provider of certified and notarized translation of documents. Their page described the whole process of ordering such service. And it was pretty interesting to read. They started explaining what does the process include. They mentioned that a certified translation will take no longer than 1 business day, which is very brave to put on a website. Another convenient thing about them is that they accept credit cards. I searched other translation agencies on the web and found out that not a lot of them accept this kind of payments, because they are working from overseas. At the same time a translation of a birth certificate for instance in one company starts from 50 bucks which is a rip off, plus shipping and notarization fees. A Russian certified translation service I am talking about offers a free shipping in the USA which is nice. But I couldn't find the cost for the same birth certificate which sucks. But if you need a Russian certification of a translation, I think you can try them out. And if you are interested to know how the translation process works, you should definitely visit their page.

Russian Certified Translation Services - Does Certified Translator need to live in your area?

We've got a lot of calls from clients who live in different parts of the United States. And all of them need a Russian English certified translation. For example a certified translation and sometimes notarized translation is needed for High School Diplomas, College and University Diplomas, passports, marriage and divorce certificates, birth certificates, etc. So, almost all the new customers keep asking if a certified translator needs to be located in their area or not. Well the answer is NO, a Russian translator does not need to be in your area. With the invention of internet, everything can be done electronically. Basically you can send an English Russian Certified Translator a copy of your document via email and this professional can work out of the copy without any problems.
So if you need a Certified and Notarized Translation of your documents, you can definitely contact this company: RUSSIAN ENGLISH CERTIFIED TRANSLATION.
They have a lot of experience in this particular field. You can check out their testimonial page.
By the way prices are very affordable as well, probably the most reasonable on the territory of the continental USA.

Freelance Translator Day in Russia — May 14th

It appears that today is a holiday for freelance translators in Russia. Nobody really knows why exactly on May 14th. But one great Russian writer said (Russian translation: Russia cannot be understood with the mind alone) Умом Россию не понять. The name of the writer is Tyutchev (Russian last name) Fyodor (Russian man's first name) Ivanovich (Patronymic).

Origin of the word "freelancer": Freelancer, or a freelance worker is a person who works without a long-term contracts. This term was first used by Sir Walter Scott in 19th century in his famous "Ivanhoe."

Army of poor Russian people continues to grow

Picture is taken from газета.ру,
the text was done by using Russian phone translation.

It is really difficult to speak about the the gap between rich and poor in Russia. During this past year the gap has not declined, but it continues to increase, according to Rosstat data.

According to the statistical agency of the distribution of money incomes among Russians in the first quarter of this year, one third of the total (30.3%) incomes of Russian population is accounted by the richest 10%, and only 1.9% - 10% share of the poorest citizens. Since last year the ratio has been steadily changing in favour of the rich. In the same period in 2007 - 10% of the richest people had 29.7% of the total incomes, and only 2% - 10% share of the poorest citizens. And this is despite the growth of salaries, pensions, as well as the growth of consumer goods.

Therefore, experts recognize the result of the prevailing rather strange, given that in late 2007 and early 2008 the Government had made efforts to increase revenues to the neediest categories of citizens - government workers and pensioners. For example, since last year the pensions grew almost by 37% and in March 2008 monthly pension was 3895 rubles; accrued average nominal wages in March of 2008 was 16428 rubbles, while real wages in March of 2008 increased by 14.6% comparing with March 2007.

But the differentiation of income is no way affected. "Therefore, efforts were inadequate and did not increase salaries", - explains expert Natalia Akindinova. Disappointing statistics related to the fact that incomes of the richest and the middle class grew more than the poor and needy Russians. For example, the proportion of the population with average incomes over 25 thousand rubles per month increased from 5.2% in the first quarter of 2007 to 9.8% in the first quarter of 2008. Those who earn 10-15 thousand rubles increased from 16.9% to 19.7%, and those who receive from 8 thousand to 10 thousand rubles - from 11.3% to 11.6%.