Russian Translations: Phone and Written

Eventually you will need to use Russian translations for your written and phone communications if you pursue Russian women who do not know English. This will be the case whether you are following the correspondence approach or the tour approach. Fortunately written and phone translations are the easy kind to navigate.

First I will tell you the all important translation trap to AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE... "Letter Forwarding Services". If you are communicating with women that you met through an agency or an agency network, you always have the option of using their agency's "Letter Forwarding Services".

Different agencies and networks have their own brand name for this Russian translations service, but basically the way it works is that you go to the girl's profile on their website, click the "Send Me a Message" button (labeling will differ from site to site), paste your message into a text box, and click "Send". The agency gets the message, translates it if necessary, prints it out, and calls the girl to ask her to come pick it up.

The options vary... sometimes you pay one flat price which includes Russian translations and the women's replies, sometimes these are extra.

As useful as this service could be if you could always trust those offering it, MANY agencies engage in letter forwarding fraud and gift fraud. In this kind of fraud, you correspond with a Russian girl through this service, paying between $8-$20 for each letter each way, but the agency is really the one corresponding with you. The girl has never heard of you.

Fortunately there is an easy way around it: Hire your own translator who doesn't know the girl or the agency, and only communicate with women with whom you can communicate directly.

Basically you email the translator the English text you want translated and she (most of them are women) mails you the Russian. If you receive an email in Russian from your woman, you paste that into an email to the translator, she translates it and returns it.

Your translator doesn't know the women you are writing, and really doesn't even have any way to find out who they are unless you include some identifying details in your messages. So they don't really have any way to use any of the slippery tactics that agencies use, even if they wanted to (which I suspect most would not).

As for Russian translations by phone, most translators can do that too (also in a way where the translator doesn't even need to know the contact details of the girl you are calling). I'm sure different translators have different policies, but basically you initiate a three-way call, first to your translator, then you patch in your Russian woman friend, and chat away. Obviously this could involve some international long distance toll depending on your phone company, but as of this writing Vonage World offers FREE international long distance to Russia, and fairly cheap per minute charges to Ukraine (around $0.15/minute).

But the fact is that now even in Russia/Ukraine many people have access to Skype , and that means FREE international long distance calls. Actually, for Skype-to-Skype calls (both parties have Skype) you even get free video chat such that you can see your women face to face. And Skype now supports video conferencing such that more than two people can speak on video at the same time. At least one party must have a "Premium" membership, but the cost is more than worthwhile. So you just have a three-way call between your girl, your translator, and you.

SO, how do you find these translators? I just Googled "English Russian Translations" and found many for hire... even here in the U.S.

If you don't want to screen through all those search hits, you can just use one of my favorites:

Alexandra: Alexandra lives in Poltava, Ukraine and provides written translation and spoken (through Skype) translation services, and in-person guide services in Poltava and Kiev Ukraine. Click here to read more about Alexandra's services.

English-Russian Translations is run by Tanya Culp, a Russian lady who used to work as a translator at a marriage agency and ended up marrying one of her clients and moving to Florida. She's an awesome translator, does phone and written Russian translations, has great rates, and usually does written translations in one business day.

Natalia: Her service details have not yet been formalized, but as soon as they are I will update this page

A Word About Software Russian Translations

You may wonder if written translation would be easier and cheaper using a simple software package. Yes, software translators are available at very reasonable prices. I really like PROMT (www.promt.com) . The cheapest version there does everything I need for $40.

Another option is translate.google.com, which offers free Russian translations.

KEEP IN MIND, though, that language software has some serious limitations! Basically, the resulting Russian translations aren't usually very good. But they are good enough for three contexts:

1) When you receive an email in Russian, you can paste it into your software translator to see if you can mostly understand it. If not, then you can call in the pro.

2) You can check the work of your professional translations. So when you send an English message to your translator and she returns the Russian version, you can plug that into your software to confirm she didn't miss anything. (by the way, in doing this you will probably see how bad software really is!).

3) You can use it relatively safely for short, unimportant messages.

But here is an iron clad rule regarding software translations: DO NOT RELY ON THEM FOR LONG OR IMPORTANT MESSAGES.