Are Russian translations important for my business?

There are 280 million people who speak Russian, therefore, it has an undeniable economic value. The total trade in goods and services between English-speaking countries and Russia is immense. For example between the UK and Russia it was £15.3 billion in 2019. Russia's hydrocarbons are of great importance for these numbers.

Many companies show economic interest in Russian-speaking countries and depend on reliable Russian English translations to do business in Russia. Many Russian agencies and public bodies ask for certified document translations .

1. The economic value of the Russian language

Russian is the widest spoken Slavic language in the world and the Russian market is one of the most prosperous too. According to the World Bank Russia had a GDP of $1.7 trillion in 2019. This makes Russia not only an important trade partner, but also the eleventh largest economy in the world.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian remained the official language in countries such as Belarus and Kazakhstan. But also in other countries like Ukraine and Latvia they speak Russian.

In Russian-speaking countries, English is not a popular business language as in the global west. So if you really want to do business in Russia, you need to have high-quality Russian translations of all documents.

2. Russian translations and the Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic script is partly based on the Greek alphabet. It's origin dates back to the 9th century, when followers of Saint Cyril developed this writing system. English natives might decipher some of the 33 letters, but it seems quite baffling at first sight.

There are plenty of false friends. Some letters seem to be similar to the English ones, but actually they are not. The Russian character "B" is an"S". The character, which looks like"H" becomes an "N".

Also, upper case and lower case letters make it a bit more complicated. Handwriting is also very different, but this does not apply to Russian translations in the business sector.

Let's be honest: It is quite difficult for English speakers to learn Pushkin's language. The Cyrillic script, six grammatical cases, numerous poetic idioms and its exquisite vocabulary, make Russian exceptionally hard to master.

Therefore, our Russian translators and our professional translation agency are the best option if you need high-quality Russian translations .

3. Legal translation: Russian names

Contracts and other official documents in Russian must contain Cyrillic letters and not Latin letters. In other words: First and last names must be transliterated from Latin into Cyrillic characters.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Translating from one writing system into another requires language proficiency. We highly recommend to contact a professional translation agency, if you need a translation of passports into Russian.

Official documents in Russian must be translated and certified by a sworn translator in order to be legally valid.

4. Does machine translation work for Russian?

The free online translation tools for Russian are relatively good for translating from Russian into English. If Russian is the target language, the tools often fail to achieve acceptable results.

One possible error source is the great amount of ambiguous words, which exist in English. For example light, run, or take.

If your company needs translation services from English into Russian, don’t trust in machine translation. It can lead to major misunderstandings and disturb communication with business partners and customers.