Who is she/he talking to?  What is she/he talking about? Is she/he talking about me? Are they really just friends?

I bet you have all these questions while your Russian wife/husband is online talking to someone who she/he calls a "friend". You were always wondering what do these weird letters mean, weren't you? Have you ever felt uncomfortable when you found your wife's/husband's messages with her/his ex and all you can understand is your name written in Cyrillic?

I have been translating personal correspondence for quite a long time and most of my clients either want to make sure their Russian speaking spouse isn’t having an extramarital affair or they just want to better understand their Russian speaking fiancée/fiancé so they won’t regret getting married. It’s very important to clearly understand the personality of the future wife/husband-to-be. Communicating through e-mails and letters can be complicated and confusing without proper translation.

You’re probably thinking hiring a translator is just a waste of money because there are so many text translators on the Internet and, what’s better, they’re free! But we don’t live in a time yet when a computer can translate like it’s really fluent in a language. Today, online translators are only sets of words. They translate without understanding or knowing which meaning would be best for a certain sentence.  Some words might have a few meanings and the online translator chooses the most common one. This error makes most of the sentences sound weird, look funny, or not make sense at all.  There are so many suffixes used in Russian that the online translator can’t translate them or the word could simply be misspelled.

Here is an example of a regular e-mail. I used Google Translator:

Приветик!

Как мой котик поживает? Я очень по нему скучаю. Только что прискакала с работы, сразу засела за компьютер. Очень хотелось поболтать с тобой. Но тебя нету:( Взглянув на часы, поняла, что мой зайчик еще не проснулся. К сожалению, сегодня встретиться в 6 в асе не получится, мой благоверный придет домой по-раньше...с нетерпением буду ждать завтра, целую много-много раз, Твоя зайка.

Before I give you the “normal” translation, I want you to try to figure out who (woman/man) wrote this e-mail and what this e-mail is about:

Privetik!

As my pozhivaet Seal? I really miss it. Just priskakala to work immediately for zasela computer. Very like to chat with you. But you do not: (a look at the clock, realized that I had not yet woken reflection of a sunray. Unfortunately, today to meet in June in ACE not work, I come home blagoverny WWII ... look will wait for tomorrow, generally many, many again, 
Your stammerers.

You’re probably smiling right now….or you’re confused. Here is what this e-mail really says:

Hi

How is my kitty (pet name for a male) doing? I miss you very much. I just came home from work and immediately sat down at the computer. I wanted to talk to you so much. But you aren’t here:(. I looked at the clock and realized that my bunny (another pet name) hasn’t woken up yet.  Unfortunately, today we can’t meet on ICQ at 6. My husband will come home earlier. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow. I kiss you many-many times,

Your bunny (pet name).

Now compare these two translations. If you were the husband of this woman and translated this e-mail with an online translator, would you understand she is having an affair with another man? No way.

So, do you still think there is no reason to pay for professional translation?