ATA SLD

Slavic Languages Division (American Translators Association)

American Translators Association: The Voice of Interpreters and Translators

Online ATA Certification Exams Now Open

The 2026 ATA certification exams are now open!

ATA is pleased to announce that online exam registration is now open! You must be an ATA member to register for an exam, and you can review the schedule and register here. Registration is open until August 21, 2026, and after you register, you will be contacted by ATA’s exam hosting company with instructions to schedule your exam. You have 30 days from the time you register to schedule and take the online exam.

How to Prepare for the Exam

Exam-taking strategies, articles, checklists, and additional advice have been gathered from successful candidates and exam graders and can be found on our website. The practice test is the best and most thorough way to measure your readiness for the ATA Certification Exam.

Why Get Certified?

ATA-certified translators earn a distinction that can open doors to career advancement and increased marketability. Because ATA certification offers qualified and independent evidence of professional competence, clients and employers often look for this credential when reviewing potential candidates. ATA helps you get noticed!

ATA-certified translators are prominently highlighted in ATA’s Language Services Directory, allowing you to stand out and be discovered. Using the CT designation and seal is an excellent way to show off your certification status on your résumé, business cards, and more. Certified translator status also confers voting membership, allowing you to shape the future of your association and your profession.

Oxford Translates: Online Literary Translation Workshop (including Russian)

Oxford Translates

An online literary translation summer school

July 6-10, 2026

Oxford Translates is an online literary translation summer school aimed at language enthusiasts and practicing translators at any stage of their career who want to explore the world of literary translation. It is open to participants anywhere in the world.

The summer school runs for 5 days. Participants work in small groups with award-winning and leading professional translators to hone their translation practice over 3 days.

In 2026, workshops are running into English from 11 languages – Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, Urdu – plus there is a multilanguage workshop for translators working in any other language. There are four workshops out of English into the following languages: French, German, Italian and Spanish.

We are delighted to have Anna Gunin leading our Russian-English workshop. Anna Gunin is a translator of novels and memoirs, films and folk tales, plays and poetry. She co-translated Svetlana Alexievich’s Chernobyl Prayer (Penguin Modern Classics), lauded in the TLS as a ‘masterly new translation’ that ‘retains the nerve and pulse of the Russian’. Anna has taught at City University, London, and the University of Bristol, as well as leading workshops at the British Library, Translate at City and Bristol Translates.

The other 2 days are filled with panels on industry trends, job readiness and workshops on particular themes or genres. Participants have the unique and exciting opportunity to practise pitching in a one-to-one session with a publisher or editor.

Scholarships are available to UK residents on a low income and residents of India applying for the Urdu translation workshop. The deadline for scholarship applications is March 16, 2026. 

An early-bird rate is available for those who apply by March 31. Workshops are limited to a maximum of 12 people and places are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. Apply early to secure your place.

For more information and to apply, click here. Contact us: translates@seh.ox.ac.uk

Robert Chandler at ATA66: Changing Attitudes to Translating from Russian

Session Review: (067) Changing Attitudes to Translating from Russian, presented by SLD Distinguished Speaker Robert Chandler on Friday, October 24, at ATA66

Review by Trace Dreyer

The art of tact, Robert Chandler argued in his first talk as Distinguished Speaker, is at the heart of translation, not choosing sides in theoretical debates. Drawing on examples from Constance Garnett’s groundbreaking work and the collaborative methods of Samuel Koteliansky, Chandler dismantled the false dichotomies that have long constrained translation theory: literal versus free, foreignization versus domestication, transparency versus opacity. Instead, he proposed that great translators must develop the sensitivity to know when each approach serves the text, negotiating meaning through dialogue rather than dogma. His message, delivered through historical examples and practical wisdom, challenges translators to abandon rigid ideologies in favor of something more demanding: the passionate commitment to bringing literature to life for new readers, whatever tactical choices that requires.

Getting down to brass tacks

Robert Chandler galvanized the room by opening with a poignant rendition of Maria Remizova’s searing poem “The House that Jack Wrecked,” translated powerfully by Dmitri Manin and published in the Smokestack Books anthology of Russian poetry Disbelief: 100 Russian Anti-War Poems (see below). This drove home the approach he would go on to advocate: grounding translation in tact, sensitivity, and communicating meaning.

Shining a light through the window of translation

Chandler brought theory to life by tracing the historical roots of translation philosophy back to the earliest Bible translations, identifying two fundamental approaches that continue to shape the field today. He likened these to the architectural differences between Protestant and Catholic churches: The windows in Protestant churches offer transparency, allowing light to stream through clearly, while the rich colors in Catholic churches’ stained-glass windows nuance the light even as they reduce its intensity. Both approaches have merit; the transparent translation gives readers the sensation of accessing something deep and complex directly, while the more ornate approach may sacrifice some clarity to preserve the distinctive character of the original language. Chandler suggested that the most successful translations transcend this binary.

Honoring Constance Garnett

Chandler began by shedding light on the success of Constance Garnett’s early-twentieth-century translations of Chekhov, Dostoevsky, and others, despite harsh criticism by those who hold fast to dichotomies.

Chandler reminded his audience that this courageous and independent woman accomplished something remarkable: Garnett’s translations successfully enabled English-speaking readers to sense the greatness of those Russian writers for the first time. Her work profoundly influenced Arnold Bennett, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and other great writers.

What made Garnett’s work successful, Chandler argued, was her tact, that is, her ability to look beyond rigid adherence to structure, grammar, and literal meaning to capture something more essential. In her translation of Chekhov, for instance, she preserved his characteristic indefiniteness, his contradictions, his loose ends. She understood that Chekhov’s genius lay partly in what he left unresolved.

The Collaborative Model: Samuel Koteliansky

Chandler also highlighted Samuel Koteliansky, whose approach was, crucially, collaborative and oral. He would read translations aloud with literary partners, D.H. Lawrence and both Leonard and Virginia Woolf, discussing and negotiating where the meaning was to be found, not just in individual words, but in tone and rhythm. This method of reading aloud and negotiating meaning offers a model for how translators might work: not in isolation, following rigid principles, but in dialogue, seeking the living spirit of the text.

Practical Wisdom

Chandler insightfully recommended that translators examine other translations into English, even translations from languages other than Russian, before beginning their own work, not to copy but to discover good ideas and solutions to common problems. This approach requires humility, a willingness to learn from predecessors rather than simply dismissing them.

He invoked the translators of the King James Bible, who “sought the truth not their own gain” and recognized the importance of not rushing their work or coveting praise. Their example reminds us that translation is ultimately a service to the author, to the text, and to readers in the target language.

Bringing Life to Translation

The session’s through-line was clear: rigid ideologies—whether favoring literal fidelity or creative adaptation, foreignization or domestication, meter or meaning—can interfere with the translator’s essential task. That task is not to demonstrate theoretical consistency or to showcase one’s own linguistic cleverness, but to bring the original text to life in a new language.

For translators of Russian literature, especially those working in today’s complex cultural and political landscape, Chandler’s message is challenging and liberating as well. Let’s develop our tact: the sensitivity to know when transparency serves the text and when a touch of strangeness is needed, when to preserve ambiguity and when to clarify, when to follow the letter and when to pursue the spirit.

Translation is not about following rules. It is about negotiation, sacrifice, and above all, the passionate commitment to bringing the text to life for those who are unable to read the original. As Constance Garnett demonstrated over a century ago, when done with tact and dedication, translation can change literary history itself.

Robert Chandler is a distinguished translator of Russian literature, whose translations include works by Pushkin, Akhmatova, and Vasily Grossman, among others.

Tracy Philip Dreyer is a professional translator and interpreter with over 25 years of experience with international agencies, government entities, and non-governmental organizations working in human rights, environment, development, and others. He is highly proficient in translation, as well as simultaneous and consecutive interpreting, and has proven familiarity with the institutional languages of UNDP, FAO, ILO, the World Bank, and other multilateral agencies. L1 English, L1 Spanish, L2 French, L3 Portuguese. Since 2020, he has been the Translation Coordinator with Signify Translation in El Salvador, Central America, where he lives and works.

The House that Jack Wrecked

Maria Remizova

This is the house

that Jack wrecked.

And these are the tenants who went to hide

In the dark basement and so survived

In the house

that Jack wrecked.

 

This is the merry titmouse

That flies no longer about the house,

The house

that Jack wrecked.

This is the cat

That cowers and whimpers and doesn’t get

What’s going on with the bombs and all that

In the house

That Jack wrecked.

 

This is the tailless dog,

Toothless, gutless, beheaded, declawed.

Maybe up in heaven it will meet God

In the house

That Jack wrecked.

 

This is the cow with the crumpled horn,

Mooing, its udder tattered and torn,

Dripping blood and milk in the morn

On the road to the house

That Jack wrecked.

 

This is the old woman, sad and forlorn,

That can’t see the cow with the crumpled horn,

Can’t see the dead dog without tail and all that,

Can’t see the mewling, hysterical cat,

Can’t see the silent and motionless titmouse,

Can’t see the mess in the basement of the house,

The house

That Jack wrecked.

She clings to the steps in an odd embrace,

A meat fly crawling across her face.

translated by Dmitri Manin

 

Original:

Дом, который разрушил Джек

Мария Ремизова

 

Вот дом,

Который разрушил Джек.

А это те из жильцов, что остались,

Которые в темном подвале спасались

В доме,

Который разрушил Джек.

А это веселая птица-синица,

Которая больше не веселится.

В доме,

Который разрушил Джек.

Вот кот,

Который пугается взрывов и плачет,

И не понимает, что все это значит,

В доме,

Который разрушил Джек.

Вот пес без хвоста,

Без глаз, головы, живота и хребта.

Возможно, в раю он увидит Христа

В доме,

Который разрушил Джек.

А это корова безрогая,

Мычит и мычит, горемыка убогая.

И каплями кровь с молоком на дорогу

К дому,

Который разрушил Джек.

А это старушка, седая и строгая,

Старушка не видит корову безрогую,

Не видит убитого пса без хвоста,

Не видит орущего дико кота,

Не видит умолкшую птицу синицу,

Не видит того, что в подвале творится

В доме,

Который разрушил Джек.

Она как-то криво припала к крыльцу.

И муха ползет у нее по лицу.

How “And Other Stories” (translated by Michael Ishenko and Liv Bliss) Came To Be

How And Other Stories (translated by Michael Ishenko and Liv Bliss) Came To Be

Front and back cover of Michael Ishenko's "And Other Stories," translated by Liv Bliss

Front and back cover of Michael Ishenko’s “And Other Stories,” translated by Liv Bliss (Photo provided by Liv Bliss)

When asked to tell the readers of the SLD blog something about one of my favorite translation projects ever, I (Liv) realized that there wasn’t much I could say that hadn’t already been said in the book itself. Michael Ishenko, fellow ATA member, author, illustrator, book designer, and translation partner extraordinaire, agreed. So here, reproduced and lightly modified with his kind permission, is the book’s afterword, “About This Translation.” As idyllically unlikely as what follows may sound, I promise you that every word is true.

Any ATA member interested in receiving their very own AOS (no charge) need only send their mailing address to me at bliss.mst@gmail.com. Don’t be shy: I’ve got lots of copies.

Liv:

Author Michael Ishenko and I had been professional colleagues for quite some time when he began sending me chapters of his fictionalized autobiography И другие рассказы, just to read. For me, it was pretty much love at first sight. The honesty, the insight, the scope… The self-deprecating humor, the visual immediacy, the whimsy… The characters, the settings, the plot twists…

And I began nagging, insisting that what I was already calling And Other Stories couldn’t possibly go untranslated. He demurred, justifiably pointing out the pitfalls. There’s too much untranslatable subtext, he told me, having witnessed younger Beta readers of the Russian-language original scratching their heads over its Soviet-era realia and its cultural nuances. Endnotes abounded.

Michael:

I included a total of seventy-one (71!) endnotes in the Russian-language original. As I wrote, I kept sending finished stories to my then-twenty-one-year-old great-niece “for queries.” My answers to her questions actually made up the bulk of my cultural and historical notes. I hate notes in a book of fiction, but it was the best I could do to make things clear for the younger reader.

Liv Bliss blended all those notes into the English narrative gently, tactfully, and seamlessly. As a result, the reader will be pleased to find not a single endnote in this book.

Liv:

I normally try to rock as few boats as possible. Not this time. Unbeknownst to Michael, I started working on an episode from the book, planning to send him my translation and then hide under my desk for a week or two. And only days before I was ready to do that — his translation, of the same episode, arrived in my inbox. Clearly, this thing was meant to be.

Michael:

And when I compared those two translations, the choice of translator became obvious to me. If I had to write this book in English, I would be happy to accept this translation as my English original. But I couldn’t write it myself, so Liv did it for me.

Liv:

Having to adjust our intensive work on And Other Stories to the rest of our professional and private lives presented some challenges. Progress was at times slow, but it was always steady. Early in the process, Michael began compiling cheat-sheets, often with illustrations, to cover elements of the next chapter in line for translation that he thought I might have difficulty with. This was invaluable to me. And any mistakes I still insisted on making that happened to escape his sharp eyes were usually caught by Nathalie Stewart, a long-time colleague and friend of Michael’s who gave each chapter a close reading and found things that had eluded us both.

Fellow translator Lydia Razran Stone once wrote that “Translating poetry is a series of compromises punctuated by miracles,” and can’t most creative translation be considered a kind of poetry? Miracles did happen in this project, for sure. But the fun, for me, came from the back-and-forth with Michael, the trading of ideas and inspirations, the dogged hunt for solutions that came closest to satisfying us both.

I have worked with, for, around, and even against many authors in my translation career, and I can tell you that not one of those experiences has been remotely comparable to this. I have learned so much, on so many levels, from Michael. He has made me a better translator than he found me.

Michael:

Speaking of compromises, I have to end with a few words about the way place-names have been transliterated in this book. Among the various Ukrainian place-names transliterated in line with the contemporary conventions, one — the name of my birthplace, Odessa — is spelled the old way. “Here I stand,” I basically told Liv. “I can do no other.”

And once again, we were on the same page.

Interview with ATA66 Distinguished Speaker Robert Chandler

SLD DS Robert Chandler reading Platonov's novel ChevengurAt ATA66 in Boston this year, SLD has invited literary translator and translation teacher Robert Chandler as its Distinguished Speaker. Robert began learning Russian at 15, and when he was 20, he spent a year as an exchange scholar in Voronezh, where Andrey Platonov was born and Osip Mandelstam was exiled. He has translated a wide variety of works, including by Sappho, Nadezhda Teffi, Alexander Pushkin, Vasily Grossman, and the Uzbek novelist Hamid Ismailov. He has edited three anthologies of Russian poetry, Russian short stories, and Russian magic tales for Penguin Classics. He has also taught translation workshops in London for many years. Before deciding to translate full-time, he worked for eight years as a teacher of the Alexander Technique, a valuable discipline involving breath, voice, and movement. In Boston, he will be presenting two sessions:

  • “Changing Attitudes to Translating from Russian” on Friday, October 24, at 2:40 PM, about the shifting legacy and interpretation of the classic translations by Constance Garnett and what that reveals about attitudes toward translation
  • “Learning from My Mistakes” on Saturday, October 25, at 10:30 AM, focusing on misunderstandings of verbal aspects

If you haven’t already registered for ATA66, don’t wait: early bird registration ends Sunday, September 14!

What brought you to Russian in the first place, and what motivated you to stick with it? What was your path toward translating professionally and teaching translation workshops?

I was fifteen years old. I was very good at Latin and Greek but did not want to continue with what, at the time, I contemptuouly thought of as “dead languages.” And we had an excellent Russian teacher at my school – kind, patient and dedicated.

You have been teaching translation workshops for many years. What do you find rewarding about teaching translators, and what do you find challenging?

Teaching is rewarding in many ways. It makes me focus more intently than ever on each word. And there are few subjects where a complete beginner may come up with truly helpful contributions. If I were teaching engineering or astrophysics, it is unlikely that a beginner would come up with something I have never thought of. But in a translation workshop it happens all the time. There are often thousands of choices to be made, and I am never going to think of all the different possibilities myself. Real collaboration is very enjoyable.

In your opinion, what makes a good translation? Is the ability to translate well something that can be taught, and how do you go about imparting it to your students?

What makes a translation good or bad is no different from what makes any piece of writing good or bad. As for imparting the ability to translate, I don’t really know. All I can do is encourage people to focus on every word of the original – and every letter of every word. And if something doesn’t make sense – to ask questions. And then to read their translation aloud to someone who does not know the original. That is the real test: does it or does it not convey real intellectual and/or emotional meaning to the listener?

I’m very far from literary translation, so I’m mystified by the process of choosing what gets translated. When reading foreign-language works, do you ever come across something that speaks to you and makes you want to translate it? Is there any pattern to the types of works that inspire you in this way? Or do publishers come to you with something they want translated?

Every translator’s experience is likely to be different. For the main part, I myself have made my own choices and proposed them to publishers. I choose works I believe in, works that I can re-read many times with pleasure. And if it is a long project, I need to feel confident that I can live for months or years in that particular author’s world.

When translating, what’s your approach to elements of the text that draw on cultural knowledge the Russian reader would have, but an English reader wouldn’t?

As with nearly all translation questions, it depends on the individual case. Sometimes a five or ten page introduction may be the best way. Sometimes end notes may be more helpful. Sometimes, for the sake of clarity, it may be possible to slip a few extra words into the main text.

I know that picking a favorite translation project can be a bit like choosing a favorite child, but do any of your translations stand out to you as particularly memorable in some way – positively or negatively?

Hard to say. I feel a great warmth towards Teffi.  Her wit, grace and resilience are remarkable.  It is a joy to be in her company.  I am also deeply moved by the number of people who have written to me, unprompted to say that reading Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate has changed their lives.

Slovo Episode 36: John Riedl and Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya

The SLD podcast, Slovo, has a new episode! Host Halla Goins chats with Russian-to-English ATA exam graders Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya and John Riedl about the session they presented last year at ATA65 in Portland, entitled “I can’t place the accent: Identifying the characteristic traits of machine translation.” Eugenia and John share how they approached the contentious topic of AI in translation, how they drew on their background as graders and their fellow SLD members to gather data on perceptions of human and machine translations, and what they and their audience learned during the session in Portland.

This session has also been reviewed for this blog by Christine Pawlowski, and the slides for it are available in the Slavic Languages Presentation Archive.

You can listen now on Soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/atasld/episode-36-eugenia-tietz-sokolskaya-and-john-riedl or look for this and past episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify.

Save the Date: Preparing Effectively for ATA’s Russian-to-English Certification Exam

Registration is now open for the upcoming webinar Preparing Effectively for ATA’s Russian-to-English Certification Exam on July 24 at 12:00 PM EDT. It will be presented by SLD member and certification exam grader Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya.

Interested in ATA certification but don’t know where to start? This webinar will help you prepare for the exam, using examples from actual Russian>English ATA exams and practice tests. We will cover the format of the exam, including what online resources are allowed, so you know what to expect on the day of the exam. We will take advantage of the resources made available by the Certification Program to delve into the skills and knowledge the exam is testing, with an in-depth look at the rubric and error categories used by graders to assess each candidate’s translation. We will examine examples of errors made on past exams to highlight common difficulties candidates face on the exam and discuss effective ways of preparing to overcome these challenges and increase your chances of passing on the first try. By the end, you will have an understanding of what ATA graders are looking for.

This webinar will be most useful to candidates looking to take the Russian>English and English>Russian exams, but can also provide valuable insight to any potential exam candidate with a working knowledge of Russian.

Find out more and register here.

Achieving High-Quality Translation: The Final Step

High-quality translation requires in-depth domain knowledge, meticulous attention, and a series of well-defined steps. In this article, I’ll focus on the last stage of a standard translation project: automated Quality Assurance (QA).

QA ensures that hard-to-spot and easy-to-miss errors are eliminated. Common issues include source and target inconsistencies, capitalization errors, incorrect spacing around punctuation marks, numerical mistakes, missing or extra tags, incorrect quotation marks, terminology mistakes, measurement unit discrepancies, etc.

Below are the steps I use when doing QA.

  1. Built-in CAT tool QA:

Most computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools (e.g., Trados Studio or memoQ) offer built-in QA functionality. Enable the relevant options in the CAT tool menus and run QA.

  1. Export to Word and use Word’s proofing features:

If your CAT tool allows it, export the translation to Microsoft Word. Press F7 to check for additional mistakes that the CAT tool may have missed. Ensure that Word’s proofing options (grammar, repeated words, uppercase words, etc.) are activated.

  1. Standalone QA tools:

Use standalone QA tools for comprehensive checks. Xbench, Verifika, and QA Distiller are some of the oldest and most popular ones.

QA Distiller is completely free, Xbench has a free limited-functionality version, and Verifika (my personal favorite) has a fully functional free web version, provides language-dependent checks, and covers numerous mistake categories. Take the time to configure Verifika with the options you need—it’s worth the effort.

  1. Double-check and run QA again:

Correct any mistakes the tool found and run another round of QA to catch any overlooked errors or newly introduced mistakes.

  1. Use multiple QA tools:

If you’re doing a test translation or working on a particularly important project, consider running QA using multiple tools. It’s better to spend time reviewing false positives than to miss an embarrassing error.

  1. Impress the client:

Go the extra mile by exporting a final QA report containing only false positives. Demonstrating your commitment to quality will leave a positive impression.

Let no mistakes slip through into your translations!

This is the third and final post in a series of posts on translation quality. The first post can be found here, and the second here.

headshot of Mikhail YashchukMikhail Yashchuk is an industry veteran. In 2002, he received his university degree in English, and six years later he founded a boutique agency where he gained experience in linguist recruitment, project management, translation, editing, and quality assurance. He has recently been admitted as a sworn translator to the Belarusian Notary Chamber.
In 2018, Mikhail joined the American Translators Association and is now working as an English-to-Russian translator, actively sharing knowledge with younger colleagues. He is the moderator for the SLD LinkedIn group. He may be contacted at mikhail@lexicon.biz.

Navigating Translation Tests: Tips for Success

by Mikhail Yashchuk

As a former boutique agency owner, I was responsible for linguist selection for 15 years. That meant that part of my routine was checking test translations. Here are some tips I can give test-takers.

✅Before taking a test, agree on rates, payment methods and other terms with the client.

You don’t want to pass a test only to find out the client can only pay you half of your regular rates, 90 days after the invoice, or using a payment method you can’t accept.

✅Leave comments if you want to clarify anything or support your linguistic choices.

Not all tests are ideal—some have ambiguities, some are out of context, some have inconsistent terms and some even contain mistakes.

Don’t be afraid to ask the client to clarify certain things. Asking relevant questions doesn’t mean you don’t know what you’re doing. On the contrary, it shows that you are attentive to detail and don’t translate blindly.

Linguistic choices can be very subjective; there are usually many correct ways of saying the same thing in the target language. So, if you think your choice of a word or term is not obvious and might be considered a mistake, leave a comment for the reviewer. Your reasoning, supported by a link to an acknowledged website or an industry standard, will be appreciated by the reviewer.

✅Use correct quotation marks (e.g. «» for Russian).

Whether you translate your test piece using Microsoft Word, a CAT tool or an online environment that may not directly support all punctuation, make sure you use correct quotes.

You can use keyboard shortcuts (e.g. Alt+0171 and Alt+0187), tick Replace straight quotes with smart quotes in Trados or simply copy and paste correct quotation marks into the translation.

✅Use a spell checker and make sure the UPPERCASE option is turned on.

Make sure the spell checker is turned on and all relevant options are ticked. If you work in Chrome, choose Enhanced spell check in Settings-Languages so that Chrome shows your mistakes in words in uppercase.

✅If you work in a CAT tool, run automated quality assurance (QA) in Xbench, Verifika, etc.

The test translation must be spot-on, so it may be a good idea to use as many QA tools as possible, because not all of them are able to find the same types of mistakes. While such tools often produce lots of false positives, it’s better to spend time checking them than to miss an embarrassing error.

✅Check your text several times.

If time permits, leave the translated piece aside, then come back and check it against the source for meaning. Then leave it aside again and check it later without looking at the source, correcting typos, punctuation, grammar and style. Repeat the last step at least twice.

✅Rephrase sentences that don’t sound natural.

If a sentence is correct in meaning but sounds awkward, try to change it—split a long sentence into two, merge two short sentences into one, use a verb instead of a verbal noun, change word order, etc.

✅Check the translation for double spaces.

Run this check (by pressing CTRL+F and typing 2 spaces) several times to find all double and triple spaces and be careful with extra or missing spaces around tags—sometimes they need to be searched for manually.

❌Don’t use hyphens (-) instead of n-dashes (–) and m-dashes (—).

Know the rules for your language (compound words, minus signs, number ranges, complex sentences, etc.) and use the correct dashes, even if the tool you work in doesn’t directly support them.

❌Don’t blindly copy source grammar structures.

That’s what Google Translate is for 😊. Human translations need to sound natural, and that often entails changing the original grammar and word order.

❌Don’t try to hand in the test ASAP.

I came across an agency once that required completing test translations within 30 minutes. But most clients expect quality and not speed, so take your time to provide your best translation ever, since there may not be a second chance.

❌Above all, don’t take a test in a domain of which you have no knowledge.

This is the last tip, but it should probably be the first on the list.

Good luck with passing your tests and finding good clients!

This is the second in a series of posts on translation quality. The first post can be found here, and the third and last, on ensuring quality by using QA tools, here.

headshot of Mikhail YashchukMikhail Yashchuk is an industry veteran. In 2002, he received his university degree in English, and six years later he founded a boutique agency where he gained experience in linguist recruitment, project management, translation, editing, and quality assurance. He has recently been admitted as a sworn translator to the Belarusian Notary Chamber.
In 2018, Mikhail joined the American Translators Association and is now working as an English-to-Russian translator, actively sharing knowledge with younger colleagues. He is the moderator for the SLD LinkedIn group. He may be contacted at mikhail@lexicon.biz.

Tips for Self-Checking Your Translations

by Mikhail Yashchuk

In our industry, everyone talks about quality. But how do you achieve it?

Education, experience, specialization, attention to detail, etc. go without saying. But today I’d like to share a simple and proven step-by-step workflow to make your translations sound natural. I have been using this workflow for 15 years and hope you find it useful.

The first step after translating a text is to set it aside for some time. When you’ve been working on a translation for a long time, you can become “blind” to errors or awkward phrasing. By stepping away from the text, you allow your brain to reset and approach the text with fresh eyes when you return to it.

Next, compare the translation against the source. This is where you carefully check for major issues such as meaning, terminology, and consistency. It’s important to ensure that the translated text accurately reflects the original meaning and that the correct terminology has been used consistently throughout. This stage also involves checking for any omissions or additions that shouldn’t be there.

After this, if possible, set the translation aside for some more time. This additional break allows you to return to your text with an even fresher perspective and with less memory of the source.

The final step is to read the translated text without looking at the source. This is a critical step that should never be skipped.

Since meaning mistakes have been fixed at the previous stage, you can forget about the original and focus solely on the translated text. Reading it from your target-language reader’s perspective allows you to spot issues with punctuation, grammar, and flow. During this step I focus on style and make many changes that result in a high-quality target text that reads naturally, as if it was originally written in the target language and not translated. To achieve such quality, sometimes I need to repeat this step several times.

This step is particularly effective for spotting sentences that don’t flow well. I’m not only talking about creative or marketing translations here. Technical, IT, healthcare, and other specialized translations need to sound natural too. They need to be concise and not use unnecessary words that make sentences longer without conveying any useful meaning. One of the few exceptions I can think of is legal translations where there may be limitations on combining or breaking up sentences.

If a sentence seems awkward or unnatural, it’s a sign that it needs to be reworked—you can change word order or sentence structure, split one sentence into two, combine two sentences into one, transform passive voice into active voice, use verbs instead of verbal nouns, etc.

P.S. These steps should not replace standard editing by a second person. To err is human; even the most experienced and careful translators can make mistakes, whether they are minor stylistic errors or major issues in meaning. Having a second person review the translation can help catch these errors and ensure the highest quality output.

This is the first in a series of posts on translation quality. Keep reading to learn about ensuring quality when doing translation tests and using QA tools.

headshot of Mikhail YashchukMikhail Yashchuk is an industry veteran. In 2002, he received his university degree in English, and six years later he founded a boutique agency where he gained experience in linguist recruitment, project management, translation, editing, and quality assurance. He has recently been admitted as a sworn translator to the Belarusian Notary Chamber.
In 2018, Mikhail joined the American Translators Association and is now working as an English-to-Russian translator, actively sharing knowledge with younger colleagues. He is the moderator for the SLD LinkedIn group. He may be contacted at mikhail@lexicon.biz.

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