Why English to Russian is harder than it looks
Every noun takes an ending, and the ending depends on its job. “To Anna,” “with Anna,” and “Anna’s” are three different forms of the same name in Russian. English marks these with separate little words, so a short English sentence carries decisions that Russian has to make explicit in the word itself.
Ты and вы decide the whole tone. Russian picks formality in the pronoun and keeps it for the rest of the conversation. Ты to a new colleague is over-familiar; вы to a close friend puts a wall up. Set the tone deliberately rather than letting it be inferred from a two-line message.
Verbs come in pairs, and you have to pick one. Russian verbs are perfective or imperfective, which is roughly “did it and finished” versus “was doing it.” English does not force the distinction, so the translator is filling in information your sentence never contained. On anything where completion matters, read the preview.
English politeness padding does not transfer. “Would you mind terribly if I asked you to…” becomes strange and slightly comic in Russian, where the direct request is the polite one. Running Concise over the English first usually produces Russian that a Russian speaker would recognise as normal.
Written by Hardik Vegad, Co-founder, Translatify. Last updated .
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