Difference between Privet vs. Zdravstvuite (Zdravstvui) in Russian language

How to greet a Russian speaking person in Russian language?

English language is fairly simple when it comes to greetings - you can just say Hi or Hello to literally anyone you meet. Russian language is a little bit different...

First, let me tell you about the three most common ways of saying Hi and Hello in Russian: privet, zdravstvuite and zdravstvui.

Now, let's see the difference between the three words:

HI - ПРИВЕТ - PRIVET - you can pronounce it as pree-viet. Privet is an informal form of greeting in the Russian language. It's a great way of saying hi to your friend or an acquaintance or a person who is not older than you or your parents. Though, you wouldn't say Privet to your in-laws (unless you are in a very good relationship with them). You can say Privet to a person you first met, as long as it's not a formal environment. I noticed that nowadays more and more younger people are using the word privet to greet people who are older than them (but it's mostly an exception).

HELLO - ЗДРАВСТВУЙТЕ - ZDRAVSTVUITE - you can pronounce it as zdra'stvujte. Now, this is the formal and respective form of greeting in the Russian language. It's also a plural form, which means that you can greet more than one person with the use of this Russian word. When you say this word to a person (of course, the tone needs to be right, too), you show them your respect and politeness. You can address the person of any age by saying zdravstvuite. Literal translation of the Russian word Zdravstvuite is 'be healthy'. So, when you say this you wish a person to be healthy. But people don't really think about it when they say it.

HELLO - ЗДРАВСТВУЙ - ZDRAVSTVUI - you can pronounce it as zdra'stvuj. This a singular form of the word zdravstvuite, which means that you can say it only to one person. This form of greeting is less formal than the previous one and you would say it to your peers and to the people you know. 

Enough playing with time in Russia!

On the 26th of October of 2014 at 2 am in the morning Russia will shift the clock backwards. And they will not touch it anymore. People will see the sunlight one hour earlier than usual. And hopefully the winter won't seem to be so long and dark.

The current summer time that's been in place for the past three years is two hours behind the astronomical time. Its main disadvantage is a lack of sun light. Many noted that one had to wake up and go back home from work in the dark.

When the time shifts, the time difference between Moscow and Central Europe will be minimal - 2 hours in winter and 1 hour in summer time.

Russian sport fans will also benefit from the time shift.

But not all Russian regions (oblasts) agreed to follow this time shift. That is why there are 11 time zones in Russia instead of usual 9. For example, Kamchatka will have 9 hour difference with Moscow.

Kemerovo oblast, Samara oblast, Udmurt Republic, Kamchatka will not shift the time. 

7 Facts of the Leningrad Blockade

27th of January was the day when the siege of Leningrad was completely lifted.

27th of January was the last of the 872 days of the blockade, hunger, and pain for hundred thousands of people.

27th of January is a Russian holiday called Days of Military Honor.

It's been 70 years since then...

To pay tribute to those who went through this horrible event in the history of Russia, we are posting 7 facts of the Leningrad Blockade.

1. The Blockade was for 872 days, that's almost 2.4 years - it started on September 8, 1941 and it was lifted on January 18, 1943. The city started with low supplies of foods and fuels. The only way out of the blockade was through the Lake Ladoga, or it's also called Ladozhskoe (it's the largest fresh water lake in Europe). It was difficult to bring enough food for everyone in the city. During the first winter of the siege, hunger took lives of hundred thousands of people.

2. 630,000 (six hundred and thirty thousand) of Leningraders died during the siege. 3% of deaths were encountered on bombings and artillery shelling...97% of people died of hunger... Dead corpses laying on the streets became a part of the everyday life. The majority of fallen people were buried at the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery.

3. 125 grams (1/4 lb) of bread a day. That was the daily bread ration for every person. Workers received 250 grams.

4. -18C (-2F) was the average monthly temperature during the first winter of the siege. In April of 1942 the snow reached a mark of 52cm (20.5inch). Sewer and water supply were turned off. The heating in the houses was off. The only source of heat at homes was a potbelly stove (pechka burzhuika). People were burning everything, including furniture, books.

5. four train cars of cats were brought to the city to save the food supplies from the rodents. In January of 1943 the just freed city received 4 cars with cats from the city of Yaroslavl. There is even a monument to cats on the Malaya Sadovaya street in Saint Petersburg.

6. 1.5 millions evacuated - there were three waves of civilian population evacuated during the blockade of Leningrad. Many people didn't want to leave their homes. Almost half the population of the city was evacuated.

7. 1,500 loud-speakers were installed for alert messages throughout the city. Also, the city radio network aired alert messages, too. The city government forbade to turn off radio at homes.

Russian Birthday Poems, Toasts with English translation

When your Russian girlfriend or boyfriend has a birthday, you always want to surprise her/him. Here is a good way to show your creativity by learning or just sending a text message/sms on your friend's birth-day. Your attention is very important on this special day. These poems are specifically designed for birthdays. If you are at a birthday party, sometimes you forget words, in this case, you can take out your postcard with your birthday poem in Russian and read it out loud. The poems can also be used as a toast. It will impress your Russian speaking friend, for sure!

If your birthday wish is sincere, it will definitely come true!

1. Желаю радости всегда
И настроения бодрого,
Не знать печали никогда
И в жизни всего доброго.
Никогда не унывать,
Не видеть огорчения
И дни с улыбкой начинать,
Как в этот День Рождения!

Russian to English translation for this poem is:

I wish you to be always happy,
I wish you a great mood,
I wish you to never know sadness,
I wish you all the kindness in your life,
I wish you to never be sad,
I wish you to start your days with a smile,
Like on this Birth Day!

The pronunciation of the poems is:

Zhelayu radosti vsegda
I nastroenija bodrogo,
Ne znat' pechali nikogda
I v zhizni vsego dobrogo.
Nikogda ne unyvat',
Ne videt' ogorchenija
I dni s ulybkoi nachinat',
Kak v etot Den' Razhdenija!

What is the best Russian online translator out there?

Today our world has no boundaries. Internet has interconnected people from different places, with different cultures and speaking different languages. Many thanks to online translation websites which offer machine translations in numerous languages.  

Several years ago the quality output of online translators was decent. Simple sentences like "I want to go home" were easily translated in most cases by a great number of free translators. It was good enough for a person who does not know the language to snatch out several words, expressions and phrases out of a complex sentence. But the actual meaning of such sentence could be mistakenly perceived in a wrong manner.

Computer technologies develop in a great pace these days. One can see improvements in every aspect of computer/online world, including free text translators.

We decided to put to a test and compare several online translators by picking three most popular and biggest online translation websites. All of them offer translations free of charge. We chose:

-Google Translator (translate.google.com);
-Bing Translator (www.bing.com/translator‎);
-PROMT Translator (http://translation2.paralink.com/);

All three translation engines handled simple phrases and sentences with no issues and we gave them all an A!

But when it comes to more complex and linguistically rich sentences, all of the above translators had certain flaws.

We will demonstrate and let you decide the winner (if any) of this "translation competition". As a sample text we plugged in the following extract in Russian language:

"В конце ноября, в оттепель, часов в девять утра, поезд Петербургско-Варшавской железной дороги на всех парах подходил к Петербургу. Было так сыро и туманно, что насилу рассвело; в десяти шагах, вправо и влево от дороги, трудно было разглядеть хоть что-нибудь из окон вагона."

Every person who considers herself or himself a big admirer of Russian literature and culture overall would recognize this piece. The extract is the opening from Dostoevsky's one of the greatest novels - The Idiot.

You can see Google translator's work below:

In late November, a thaw, at nine o'clock in the morning, train Petersburg-Warsaw railway on all cylinders coming to Petersburg. It was so damp and foggy that hardly dawned, in ten steps, right and left of the road, it was hard to see anything out of the windows of the car.

Here is Bing's translation:

In late November, during the thaw, hours at 9 a.m., the train of the Petersburg-Warsaw railroad at all pairs came to Petersburg. It was so damp and foggy that nasilu at dawn; ten steps to the right and to the left of the road, it was difficult to make out anything from the Windows of the car.

The funny part of Bing's translator was that it translated windows as Windows into English (capitalizing the word like they were talking about their Windows operating systems).

And finally, PROMT (though it was difficult to choose PROMT's translation, because they offered four of them!):

In late November, in a thawing weather, hours per nine mornings, a train of the »ÑÔÑÓíÒÓú߬«-Warsaw railway at full speed approached to Petersburg. Was so humid and foggy, that насилу рассвело; in ten steps, to the right and to the left from road, it was difficult to make out though something from windows of the car.

We are not going to make a linguistic analysis of the translation results, but instead, we decided to post a professional Russian translation of Eva Martin. She translated the whole book. You can see for yourself if you like any of the translations above comparing to her translation.

Towards the end of November, during a thaw, at nine o'clock one morning, a train on the Warsaw and Petersburg railway was approaching the latter city at full speed. The morning was so damp and misty that it was only with great difficulty that the day succeeded in breaking; and it was impossible to distinguish anything more than a few yards away from the carriage windows.

If it were me, I would go with Google's translator, because for one- it translated ALL the words. All in all, I think all three translations were OK. If you have something that really matters and needs to be translated as close to a professional translation as possible, my advice would be to translate it by three online translators. Each translation will compensate one another. 

How Russians are named by other nations

Names for Russians by other nations

Let's hear how people around the world name or used to name Russians.

We will start with the closest Russian friend and neighbor - Ukraine. Ukrainians (and Polish people) call Russians KATSAPs. This word is usually used in a negative tone. They say that there are two possible ways of the origins of the word. The first is that the word originated from Ukrainian for goat. Russians with their beards looked like goats to shaved Ukrainians. Another possible etymology of the word is Turkic language; Kasap translates as a bandit.

Another commonly used name for Russians among Ukrainians is Moskal.

In return Russians called Polish people psheki and Ukrainians - khokhly.

Koreans and Chinese called Russians mauchzhe which also reffered to the beard Russians liked to wear.

Germans called Russians Ivans, because Ivan was the most "truly Russian", and the most popular name. Even these days if you want to point out that a person is a simpleton, you can call him Vanya (Vanya is a diminutive for Ivan). 

Who are you? OK, good bye! Ty Kto takoi? Davai, do svidania! Russian-Azerbaijan Rap-Song.

We had to write about this 'work of art', because since the end of May 2012 this Youtube video received more than 7 million views. The two singers were invited to Moscow to a popular TV show.

We also would like to put a little note here: a Russian transliteration of the song is Ty kto takoi? Davai, do svidania.

For those of you who don't speak Russian language - these people are singing with a big accent in Russian. But I guess it makes it even more fun. This gathering of mostly men resembles to a wedding or some big event. They start by singing 'Who are you? OK, good bye!' And then they mix Russian, Azerbaijan and Talysh languages.

We asked for a professional Russian translation of one youtube description for this song:

So, it is a wedding in a settlement called Tangerud of Astary district of Talysh region located on the South Eastern part of Azerbaijan. There are two groups of people competing in a verse form (like rap battle). People are making jokes about nothing. They also call this Meykhana - (information from wikipedia) - Meykhana (Azerbaijani: meyxana) is a distinctive Azerbaijani literary and folk rap tradition, consisting of an unaccompanied song performed by one or more people improvising on a particular subject.

And now you can enjoy this video below.

Mission Statement for a Translation Company - Things to Include

            In this post we decided to explain our view on a mission statement for a translation/ interpretation company. 

Let's imagine there is some translation company called T-translations Inc. The company provides translation and interpretation services around the world. The company works with over 1000 of translators. This translation agency  interprets and translates from over 65 official languages. Some of the additional services that the company provides are proofreading, audio/visual transcriptions, and software localization. T-translations claims that it is open 24 hours a day, has emergency fast service option, and 3% price-beat guarantee. It is also a member of American Translation Association. 

        First of all, a mission statement shouldn't be too long. Though, a long mission statement can give a lot of information about the company, and what it provides. However, a mission statement should explain what the company is trying to accomplish. The description of the company and the services it provides is not the place for it. The information provided in the mission statement should be matching the information on the company's website. 

In addition, it shouldn't look like people behind T-translations think that the company reached its top in customer service, number of subcontractors, areas of operation, and they are not trying to improve anything. The mission statement shouldn't be like a hybrid of an advertisement and summary of the company.

In my opinion, a professional translation company needs to keep its mission statement short and clear. However, the most important thing to do is to show to the public and the employees (subcontractors mainly) what the main goals are for the company. In other words, they need to show how they are going to improve their business.

Lastly, a well-written mission statement for a translation company should be something like this (we chose Russian Translation Pros as an example): "Russian Translation Pros’ mission is to deliver the highest quality and variety of translation and interpretation services to businesses as well as individuals while constantly improving quality of the customer service and keeping the costs to a minimum". 

How to Translate Russian Birth Certificate

We needed to make a translation of a Russian birth certificate into English. I tried to find a sample of a well translated Russian birth certificate and I did find some useful resources online. And here is a little summary about the main things to look for when making the translation yourself. And I have attached an example of the translated document.

If you are a bilingual person, then it's not a problem at all. All you have to do is just to translate names, geographical locations, such as city, district, region, country, place of registration of a child, etc. The most important thing when translating a birth certificate is to make sure that all the names are spelled (or transliterated) the same way they appear in all other official documents. This can be a big problem for the immigration service if this rule is not followed. For example, the name Aleksandr can be spelled in several ways, like Alexander, Aleksander, Aleksandr - you got an idea. If you do not have your name transliterated yet, chose one spelling and go with it in every document.

If you are not sure how to translate your place of birth, wikipedia is a good source of geographical information. Let's say your birth certificate states that you were born in город Винница, Винницкой области, УССР. There are several options you can chose from - city of Vinnytsia, Vinnitsa, Vinnica. It all depends on how the city was recorded in your other documents. Then goes the region which should be the same - Vinnytsia, and finally, Ukrainian SSR should do it for the republic you were born in. Please don't be confused about district and region: район - district, and область stands for region, or it can be translated as oblast.

For the USCIS purposes, all the stamps should be translated also. If the original document is old and the stamps are not readable, you can put a note at the bottom of your translation that the text in the stamp is not legible.

I think I covered the most important parts when it comes to a Russian to English translation of a birth certificate.

Though most of the time, Immigration office requests a certified translation, that means that the translation has to be signed by a professional translator. If this is the case, you can always go with a Russian certified translation performed by a professional company. If you decide to use a translation agency, make sure you let them know the spelling of your names.

Below you can see a translation of a Russian birth certificate.

     

Russian privet in First 2012 Google Doodle

The first Google's Doodle of this 2012 year is an image of small letters trying to decide (or fulfill) their New Year's resolutions.

The first letter which is "G" listens to a language program and learns how to say "Hello" or "Hi" in 9 different languages. Among these languages you can find a Russian word for "Hi".

Hi in Russian is "PRIVET", in Cyrillic it's written as ПРИВЕТ. It's a really easy word to learn, pronounce and remember. Pronounce it as PREEVE'T - put a stress on the last syllable, but don't push it too much.

Happy New 2012 Year!!! And Privet to you all!!!