Eurasian Linguistic Services Ltd.

20/10/2025

Happy Diwali to all our friends and colleagues across the globe. May the light, balance, strength and wisdom always be with you!
(Photo by Suchandra Roy Chaudhuri).

31/01/2025

We are a small specialist legal translation and interpreting boutique, working with outstanding linguists for several decades now. Having survived the lockdown, major recent geopolitical turmoils and the tsunami waves of Machine Translations and AI solutions, which have all changed the needs and appetites of our clients, we are constantly adapting. Here are some interesting statistics on the types of orders we had in 2024, which I hope might be enlightening, to both our clients and colleagues alike. More numbers and language flags are to follow.
And some very exciting new products to be offered soon!

27/09/2024

It was a pleasure and an honour to provide legal interpreting services for this case both in London and Dubai. Grateful to the legal teams on both sides for their support, and for the amazing services of the court reporters and OPUS2 technicians.

Alexander Gorbachev had claimed he was entitled to a stake in PhosAgro

12/09/2024

On the importance of being earnest.

My first role in an English-language play was in a school performance, in Moscow, at the age of 15, in the famous “handbag” scene from the immortal play by Oscar Wilde. Our school put together annual concerts (in English and in Russian), as well as huge choir festivals, and all were enormous undertakings. I played Miss Prism, of course, whom else?

And how I loved it, both the acting and the dressing up! My mother’s wardrobe was raided, her long blue velvet evening skirt was taken in, the white “leg-of mutton” blouse borrowed from our neighbour, and a ridiculous brioche constructed on my head. A pair of fake glasses substituted the pince-nez, as a clever touch (or so I though). I looked like a blue stocking, and did my best to act, sound and move like one.

Little did I know how that first thespian experience would affect my life! Why mention it now? Let me be earnest, as it is important.

Knowing the different "mis-en-scenes" impacts on the effectiveness of our company's and my personal work. We cater for the East and the West, Europe and Asia. We must, and we do, know how to select the right people for the very different language assignments (in both translation and interpreting), to check the requirements and be on hand with a last minute "prompt" or a fix.

There is a push these days, I believe, an active encouragement for us all to live and think in a very informal and uniform way, on a global scale. We are urged to speak in “plain English” (or have it translated into “plain XYZ language”) and behave according to the customs of one dominant culture. The consequences can be unfortunate at best and catastrophic at worst.

Yes, it is so important to know how and when to be informal (and master various levels of formality), when to be serious or light-hearted, to move between the lexical and grammatical “registers” of communication in translation, to know the difference between the accents and dialects in interpreting, to tell when to speak and hold peace, pause in business meetings and do small talk without overstepping the boundaries. How to dress. How to exit the stage gracefully.

No AI tool will work out, or tell you which concept has to be translated as a single word, or should be expanded in parenthesis or fully explained a footnote. We always encourage the use of “translator’s comments” and give full feedback to our clients during and after our assignments. It is important, and we take it seriously.

PS: I am attaching some archive photos of the lovely costumes for the "Shakespeare on the Green" performance, with my friends from Wargrave Theatre Workshop, as a tribute to my mother’s blue velvet skirt. Still looking for a pince-nez to try on, though!

22/08/2024

Some language fun facts (some would say it is language trivia - but we believe non-verbal communication knowledge is critically important). Enjoy!

29/02/2024

QUARE ID FACIAM FORTASSE REQUIRIS

This week I was very happy to break bread and share memories over a simple lunch with an old business acquaintance, in a beautiful rooftop restaurant in the City of London. In the past we worked alongside each other, doing our own respective things for well over a decade, then life separated us. Having cooperated on many high-profile international events, visits, big projects and legal cases, we both knew what was now unfolding before our eyes, and why. We were on the same page of the same book – it was dusty, bulky and written in an archaic script on vellum pages.

No names were mentioned during our lunch, no comments or prognosis made. We talked about our families, life and work balance, sharing travel stories, multilingual proverbs and historical anecdotes. My favourite one?

“A high profile Chinese official when recently asked “What is your opinion on the role of Napoleon in global history?” replied “It is too soon to say”. It is indeed…

My friend complemented our website and the multitude of languages and services that Eurasian Linguistics now covers, and then asked what was the most exotic language that we have ever had to deal with.

– Without a doubt – LATIN! Translation from English into Latin. And it was for a business client!

My acquaintance laughed, and happily admitted that he studied Latin and Ancient Greek at school for 8 years (how lucky!), whereas I had only one year of Latin at University, alongside a dozen other subjects. But I still do remember, by heart:

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris
Nescio sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

This verse referred to Catullus’s dramatic and turbulent relationship with Lesbia, of course, but it kind of sums up the current existential angst of so many people I know. Who said classics are not relevant? Now more than ever. How about

Ave, Caesar, moritori te salutant!

And more to the point,

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?

I am now very keen to re-visit Cicero’s works (not in Latin, I hasten to add) and have just discovered a superbly written English language Introduction to his speeches, in the link below, describing both the Catilinian rebellion, the politics of the day and relevant points of law:

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Speeches_Against_Catilina/WpJJAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA7&printsec=frontcover.

It makes a fascinating reading, and I really enjoyed it.

Vale!

PS: Dear friends, if so minded, please do share your favourite phrases, proverbs or verses in Latin, Ancient Greek, Esperanto or Church Slavonic – or DM me, in confidence, if you would like to use your knowledge of the Classics as our freelancer.

09/02/2024

Friday Vignettes. An amusing, and slightly alarming "Man vs Machine" case study from this week: we translated a long Post-Nuptial Agreement for a legal client, from language A to language B. The original (in language A) had a glaring error in the signature paragraph: "I hereby confirm that I have read and understood the contents of the Pre-Nuptial (sic!) Agreement etc..." - or words to that effect. Have a guess what the AI translation would have said? Our translator spotted the document error - an old template copy, obvs, corrected it and gently drew this to our attention. And our QA team confirmed the error. Two pairs of eyes, two human brains beats the machine, any time. We passed the comment on to the overworked, busy lawyers who drafted the document. Faces saved, job done, no fuss, business as usual. We love working well with words. Happy Friday to everyone!

11/11/2023

Happy Diwali! Let us all celebrate the triumph of light, peace, unity, wisdom and joy.

Photo credit - Ashwini Chaudhary (Monty)

10/11/2023

"It's a numbers game", even if we are working with words, and it is always fascinating to watch the trends. These stats reflect our order numbers, not the word counts or revenue split. And we are carefully monitoring the share of the little grey segment (for revision and certification of third party document translations sent to us, including the AI jobs). Would you like an update on this pie chart in 6 months' time?

28/09/2022

So good to attend the Annual Conference of the Association of Translation Companies (ATC) in London last week after a three year gap! Great friends and colleagues, all united in our love of languages, and customer care.