Lovely Ladies,

wanting to get to know a foreigner, many face a language barrier and difficulty understanding the translation that was made with an interpreter program.

The language barrier should not be a hindrance to your desire to meet a foreigner and change your life. On the contrary, you should actively use electronic translators instead of embarrassing male foreigners with letters in Russian.

You have to accept the fact that machine translation is no substitute for knowing the language. You have to be patient since it is not always possible to correctly and fully convey the depth of your thoughts. It is important to follow some rules so that the translated message will be understandable to your interlocutor.

The essence of the problem of mechanical translation is that the program-translator can not understand the meaning of what is written and correct errors, on a par with a living person, a professional translator. It is a machine that cannot think for or with a human, it only performs the task at hand. If a professional translator can rephrase a thought and translate it into a specific foreign language, an electronic translator simply recognizes words and word bundles, if they are written according to the rules of the language, that is correctly, and translates them word for word. Translator software only translates words, but does not think through the meaning of what you have written with you. It cannot think for itself, you have to do it for it before you click “Translate”.

Using a translation program it is very easy to make mistakes that won’t be noticeable to us, but will have an effect on communication with a male foreigner.

We will give you a couple of “rules” which will help you to communicate with a foreigner with the help of an interpreter program and avoid misunderstandings or funny mistakes.

1. Use simple and short sentences. Try to write simple letters and avoid high-flown comparisons, complex sentences, and ambiguity. The beauty and fullness of the Russian language and the culture of your speech cannot be accurately conveyed by machine translation.

2. avoid spelling mistakes. A misspelled word will not be understood or translated by the translator program. Therefore, before you translate your email, reread it to correct any mistakes or typos.

3. don’t leave out dots, commas and spaces. Thoughts not separated by punctuation turn into a set of words. They cannot be properly translated and understood. Think of a well-known example from a children’s cartoon. “Execution cannot be pardoned”?

4. Before submitting, review the translated message. Without knowledge of the foreign language you will not be able to understand the correctness of the translation, however, if certain words have not been translated you will notice this and be able to correct it. As a rule, these are words written with a mistake, often they will simply be written using the Latin alphabet. For example, Rada obschatsya mit Ihnen.

5. Use the official names institutions, cities, computer programs (e.g. Skype, not Skype) and phone applications (WhatsApp and Viber, instead of WhatsApp and Viber).

In conclusion, it is important to think about every message you send, not only so that it is properly translated, but also so that it makes a good impression on the man.

Here are a few examples of curious mistakes.

“Hello from Peter!”

Foreigners and electronic translators do not know that among Russians the city of St. Petersburg is commonly referred to as “Peter. The word “Peter” is better known as a masculine name. So if you want to say “hello from St. Petersburg” and don’t know a foreign language, i.e. depend on a translation program, use the official name of the city (St. Petersburg), otherwise the man you like will get “Hello from Peter!”, “Grüße von Peter” in German or “Greetings from Peter” in English out of the blue. How the man will react to this and whether he will want to find out who Peter is saying hello to him is a complicated question. Most likely, he will not understand the subtleties of the Russian language and translation errors, and simply will not respond to the message.

Expressions, proverbs, and sayings are not translated verbatim

The term “proverbs” is used in every language, they are based on wordplay and hidden associations, on the figurative meaning of certain words and actions. Their meaning, however, is understood only by native speakers and is not transmitted by automatic, literal translation.

In order to correctly use stable expressions in written speech in a foreign language, it is necessary to know their counterpart in the foreign language. This will require the help of a professional translator (not a program, but a person).

A simple example, “there are devils in a still pool.” In German, the saying goes like this: “stille Wasser sind tief”. Literally, it means “calm water, which can be deep. See, no devils! You can’t translate the meaning verbatim without knowing how the saying sounds in German.

If you certainly want to include a strong expression or saying in your letter, look up the phrase on the Internet as it sounds in a foreign language, but by no means translate it verbatim with a translation program.

Here’s an example of how expressions we use in everyday life without thinking about their literal meaning can be misinterpreted.

“A stitch in one place” – do you mean surgery or trauma? It is unlikely that a foreigner would understand that we are talking about a fidget…

“Hast Du vatsap oder vayber? / Do you have vatsap or vayber?”

Viber, WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook are all proper names and should be written using the Latin alphabet. Viber, WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook. In the official Russian language there is simply no such word as, for example, “vatsap”, so the translator will not understand it and will translate it verbatim – “vatsap”. Will the man guess what it is, what means of communication we are talking about?