Last update: December 14, 2023
If you have any comments, suggestions, questions or need for an arbitration, create a topic in the Style Guide section, the Language Lead will get back to you.
Here you will find the guidance for Russian, but you should also consider the guidance for all languages.
1. Capitalization
- Capitalize only the first letter of a sentence and the names of people, products or places.
- Always apply your language conventions rather than adhering to the English source.
- When the writing of a word is tolerated with and without capitalization, choose its version without capitalization (examples: page web, site internet).
Capitalize
- Proper names
Proton Mail
Proton VPN
NetShield - Command/Folder names (first word only)
Открыть, Сохранить как - First word of a sentence, title or subtitle
Создано в Швейцарии - In UI items made up of 2 alternative commands separated by a slash, both are capitalized
Импорт/Экспорт файла - In bulleted lists introduced by a sentence and ending with a colon
У нас есть решения:
- Для семей, которым важна безопасность детей в Интернете.
- Для специалистов, которые хотят защитить данные клиентов.
Do not capitalize
- First words in lists introduced by a sentence and ending with a semicolon or a comma
Вам доступно следующее:
- сквозное шифрование;
- 5 ГБ пространства на диске.
- Words after colon when in the same line
Примечание: чтобы удалить учетную запись, нужно разрешение администратора. - Nationalities and languages
Сервис Proton Mail доступен на русском языке - Names of days, months and seasons
понедельник
январь
зима
2. Gender
- We want to be as inclusive as possible, so we try to be neutral, but we use gender-specific nouns and verbs if remaining neutral goes against the writing best practices for a specific language.
- Basic principles:
- When possible, avoid the use of masculine singular form to refer to someone whose gender is unknown.
- Don’t suggest the reader’s gender using a specific grammatical forms. If you cannot use forms that are gender-free, rephrase the sentence. Be as creative as possible.
| English | We avoid | We prefer |
|---|---|---|
| I am happy to help you. | Я рад вам помочь. | Мне было приятно вам помочь. |
| I was interested in ProtonMail… | Я заинтересовался(-лась) сервисом ProtonMail… | Меня заинтересовал сервис ProtonMail… |
| I am not used to this tool. | Я не привык к инструменту. | Нужно привыкнуть к инструменту. |
The gender and number of the acronym are determined by the gender and number of the translation for the governing noun of the extended form. However, it is more natural to use a descriptor in such cases. Exception for the acronym VPN, to be used in masculine:
- free VPN бесплатный VPN
- unlimited VPN безлимитный VPN
3. Abbreviations
Whenever possible, avoid using abbreviations.
Abbreviate the text only when you lack space (mainly buttons, option names or strings with specific character limitations) or when you need to ease the text readibility. Instead of abbreviating (e.g., 4 or 5 consecutive words), summarize a term or a phrase in 2 or 3 words that can be written in full.
General criteria for shortening words:
- Omit at least two letters
- Truncate a word so that it ends with a consonant and place a period after it
- When a word contains a double consonant, truncate it at the second one and place a period after it
- There are abbreviations «и т. д.», «и т. п.» which are widely used. They should not be used in the middle of a sentence. Add non-breaking spaces between all parts of these abbreviations. If you can replace them, feel free to do this.
Электронная почта Эл. почта
| We avoid | We can use | We prefer |
|---|---|---|
| Сайтов, приложений и т. д. становится все больше. | Становится все больше сайтов, приложений и т. д. | Становится все больше сайтов, приложений и других ресурсов. |
*Please prioritize this option when there are no space limitations.
Days abbreviations (in calendars, agendas, timetables… the names of days are written without a period for visual purposes):
| English | Translation | Abbreviation |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | понедельник | пн. |
| Tuesday | вторник | вт. |
| Wednesday | среда | ср. |
| Thursday | четверг | чт. |
| Friday | пятница | пт. |
| Saturday | суббота | сб. |
| Sunday | воскресенье | вс. |
Months abbreviations (in calendars, agendas, timetables… the names of months are written without a period for visual purposes):
| English | Translation | Abbreviation |
|---|---|---|
| January | январь | янв. |
| February | февраль | февр. |
| March | март | Not applicable |
| April | апрель | апр. |
| May | май | Not applicable |
| June | июнь | Not applicable |
| July | июль | Not applicable |
| August | август | авг. |
| September | сентябрь | сент. |
| October | октябрь | окт. |
| November | ноябрь | нояб. |
| December | декабрь | дек. |
4. Acronyms
- Common examples are VPN (Virtual Personal Network), DNS (Domain Name Server), HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), etc.
- The most common acronyms and their translations are included in the glossary. Always refer to the glossary when localizing acronyms.
- The gender and number of the acronym are determined by the gender and number of the translation for the main noun of the extended form, but an exception applies to acronyms with the consonant at the end (e.g. VPN, NAT, etc.) which take the masculine gender by default (e.g. бесплатный VPN, безлимитный VPN). It is also more natural to use a descriptor in such cases.
API (Application Programming Interface) is masculine because the translation of “interface” (“интерфейс”) is masculine. API is used… Интерфейс API использовался… - Exception: acronyms VPN, NAT to be used in masculine:
- free VPN бесплатный VPN
- unlimited VPN безлимитный VPN
- free VPN
- When an acronym is repeated several times in the same section, include its extended form in parentheses only for its first occurrence.
5. Pronouns
- English, especially technical English, is more redundant than some other languages.
- When translating, you often need to reduce the redundancy of the source text using pronouns. This may otherwise affect the text readability. However, this must not affect accuracy.
- When translating technical and complex strings, ensure users can associate pronouns to the noun they refer to.
- Avoid the use of possessive pronouns when possible.
- Omit pronoun subjects such as “we” and “you".
6. Gerunds (“ing” ending)
- Gerunds are used in English, such as in “Creating a report”.
- When paragraph and chapter heads begin in English with a gerund or it appears in UI to show the action in process, it is recommended to use a noun, translating it as the equivalent of “Creation of a report”.
- In case of action in process in UI string use first person plural present tense verb if noun sounds unnatural.
Generating keys… Генерируем ключи…
7. Punctuation
The general rule is to follow your language standard grammar rules. As a reference, the below resources can be consulted:
7.1 Period
- For the period at the end of a sentence, adapt the source to your language usage: when the English source does not put a period at the end of the sentence but you should in your language, add it in your translation. In this case, make sure that the text you are translating is not a part of a longer sentence (this is usually specified in the context).
- Unless the item includes more than one sentence, do not place any periods at the end of titles/headers, tooltips, short labels, buttons and checkboxes.
- Include a period at the end of each extended sentence in a bullet list if this sentence has a full meaning by itself.
7.2 Exclamation mark
Exclamation marks are used to give emphasis. As their use is less common than in English, you should use them sparingly: feel free to change an exclamation mark into a period if it is more natural, but please don’t change a period into an exclamation mark.
| English | We avoid | We prefer |
|---|---|---|
| Importing contacts complete! | Импорт контактов завершен! | Контакты импортированы. |
7.3 Parentheses
- Parentheses are used to clarify statements or provide additional information.
- Avoid parentheses as much as possible and adapt to the context.
- If a sentence in parentheses clarifies the context, it usually starts in lower case and its ending period is put outside the closing parenthesis. However, a sentence in parentheses providing additional information separated from the context may start in upper case and have its ending period before the closing parenthesis.
| English | We avoid | We prefer |
|---|---|---|
| Please enter a name to finish setting up. (Other people will see this.) | Чтобы завершить настройку, укажите имя. (Его будут видеть другие пользователи). | Чтобы завершить настройку, укажите имя. Его будут видеть другие пользователи. |
| We support importing different image files. (JPEG, PNG, BMP) | Вы можете импортировать изображения разных форматов. (JPEG, PNG, BMP) | Вы можете импортировать изображения разных форматов, например JPEG, PNG и BMP. |
7.4 Colon and semicolon
- Colons and semicolons come immediately after the preceding word, with no space in between, and the following word should not be capitalized.
Date: 2 January Дата: 2 января
7.5 Em dash (—), en dash (–), hyphen (-)
- Em dash should be used in a sentence.
- Make sure to add no-breaking space before it and single space after.
- Em dash is not used for date ranges, therefore you should use en dash instead.
- Use hyphen in complex word, in indefinite pronouns and to join prefixes.
- Hyphens and en dashes should not be preceded or followed by spaces.
September 10 - 20 10–20 сентября
Proton Mail is an email service. Proton Mail — сервис электронной почты.
Somewhere, anybody, firstly Где-нибудь, кто-нибудь, во-первых
7.6 Quotation marks
- Use chevrons («example»).
- The period should go outside the closing quotation mark.
Стороннее приложение «PLACEHOLDER»
7.7 Ampersand (&)
Replace “&” with “и” unless it is part of a company/product name or a registered trademark.
8 Spacing and non-breaking spaces
- Space between words or after punctuation is always a single.
- Use non-breaking spaces:
- Abbreviations “и т. д.” and “и т. п.”
- Before an em dash.
- With measurement units.
- With currency symbols.
- With initials.
- With a percent sign.
- As a thousand separator.
- Example:
- 10○€,
- 2○ГБ,
- и○т.○д.,
- И.○И.○Иванов,
- Любить○— здорово.
- 10○000
- To insert a non-breaking space using your keyboard:
- On Windows, hold down the “Alt” key while typing the number “255”.
- On Apple, Ctrl + Option⌥ + Space bar.
9 Numbers
- Replace the period that stands for the decimal point in American English with a comma in your translations.
3.75 3,75 - For numbers smaller than 1, always put a zero before the decimal comma.
.5 0,5 - The period in app/software version numbers remains unchanged.
Proton Mail v.3 - Time and date:
- Hours and minutes are separated by a colon. Use the 24 hour format to specify A.M. and P.M. at 9:25 P.M в 21:25
- The date format is “dd/mm/yy”.
01-31-22 (mm/dd/yy) 31/01/22
- Hours and minutes are separated by a colon. Use the 24 hour format to specify A.M. and P.M. at 9:25 P.M
10 Ordinal numbers
- Ordinal numbers may be written in with numerals.
- Use two letters with hyphen in the ending when the last letter is preceded by a consonant (8-го) and one letter with hyphen in other cases (1-й, 5-я).
- If a number is a part of adjective, you can say восьмипроцентный or 8-процентный.
- Take into account the gender of the noun which is connected with the ordinal numeral.
11 Currencies
- Do not convert USD ($) or EUR (€) amounts to any local currency.
- Place the USD or EUR code or the symbol €, $ after the number and separate it with a non-breaking space from the number.
- Use signs consistently, and do not replace them with «евро» or «долларов США».
$ 30 30 $ - Exception: the sign for Ruble (₽) is rarely used. Use full form (рублей) or abbreviation (руб.) if space is limited.
12 Units of measurement
- Use the metric system.
- Insert a non-breaking space between a number and the relevant unit.
- Convert imperial units into metric units.
6 feet 1,83 m
| Category | Measurement Unit | Translation | Abbreviation |
|---|---|---|---|
| LINEAR | Kilometer Meter Centimeter Millimeter |
километр метр сантиметр миллиметр |
км м см мм |
| MASS | Ton Kilogram Gram |
тонна килограмм грамм |
т кг г |
| IMPERIAL | Inch Feet Mile Gallon |
дюйм фут миля галлон |
Not applicable |
| COMPUTING | Byte (B) Megabyte (MB) Gigabyte (GB) Terabyte (TB) |
Байт Мегабайт Гигабайт Терабайт |
Б МБ ГБ ТБ |
13 Form of address
- Use formal form (“вы”) of address everywhere. Do not use uppercased “Вы” even in letters.
If you use third-party app… Если вы используете стороннее приложение…
14 English “please”
- In English, it is very common to use the word “please” to introduce an instruction (“Please fill out the field Name in the form”). Reduce it as it is often excessive.
Please try again later. Повторите попытку позже.
15 Foreign words
- Use the transliterated version only if the term is well-known.
Example for the term “streaming”: Secure streaming Защищенный стриминг - Do not use Latin words in case they are not proper names.
Cashe, tag, router, driver Кеш, тег, роутер, драйвер
16 Localizing person names
- Localize fictitious person names used for explanatory purposes, choosing a name that is generic but not stereotypical.
Please enter your display name (e.g. Julia Smith) Укажите свое имя (например, Юлия Иванова) - Do not localize real persons’ names.
Bart Butler is a senior engineer at Proton Mail Барт Батлер работает в компании Proton Mail
17 Localizing domains and email addresses
Localize fictitious domain names and e-mail addresses used for explanatory purposes:
- Translate the local-part of an e-mail address
user@ ivan@ - Translate the domain name
yourdomain.com vashdomain.ru - Use your target country code at the end
.com .ru
| English | Translation |
|---|---|
| Proton Mail allows you to keep your business email address (you@yourcompany.com) | В Proton Mail можно создать почтовый адрес для своей компании (ivan@egocompania.ru). |
However, do not localize any real email addresses or domain names.
To reset your mailbox password, please use the web version of Proton Mail at proton.me
Чтобы сбросить пароль от почтового ящика, перейдите на сайт proton.me
18 Russian Ё/ё
Use Ё/ё letter rather than E/e.
Even if E/e usage is accepted as a replacement for Ё/ё, the official writing is with Ё/ё.