Translate a JSON i18n File into Russian

What Russian changes in your UI strings

Russian is written in Cyrillic and runs longer than English: long words, case endings and fuller phrasing. “Save” becomes «Сохранить», “Account settings” becomes «Настройки аккаунта». On a lone label the difference is minor; on a tab, a badge or a narrow column, text overflows or gets clipped.

• Fonts: if your web font is loaded with the Latin subset only, Cyrillic letters show up as boxes or fall back to a font with a different design. Make sure the Cyrillic subset is included, for every weight you use.
• Capitalisation: Russian capitalises only the first word of a heading or button. “Account Settings” is not «Настройки Аккаунта» but «Настройки аккаунта».
• Punctuation: Russian uses «ёлочки» guillemets rather than straight or curly quotes, and an em dash in some nominal sentences («Цена — 10»).
• Numbers and dates: decimal comma, a space as thousands separator, dates written 31.12.2025. These come from your code, for instance Intl.NumberFormat('ru'), not from the translation file.

Four plural forms and placeholders that need case endings

English gets by with one and other. Russian needs four, depending on how the number ends:

• one: 1, 21, 101 (but not 11) → «1 файл»;
• few: 2–4, 22–24 (but not 12–14) → «3 файла»;
• many: 0, 5–20, 25–30… → «5 файлов»;
• other: fractions → «1,5 файла».

So {count, plural, one {# file} other {# files}} becomes {count, plural, one {# файл} few {# файла} many {# файлов} other {# файла}}. Without few and many, the library falls back to other and displays «5 файла», an error any Russian reader will spot.

Placeholders raise a second issue: Russian declines nouns and marks gender on past-tense verbs. In “Share with {name}”, the name should take the instrumental case, which a placeholder cannot do. “{name} edited the file” needs a masculine (изменил) or feminine (изменила) verb. Wording such as “Shared with: {name}”, or a gender select already present in the source, avoids the dead end.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

You upload the JSON file straight from your project, flat or nested, with its string arrays. You get the same file back: indentation, key order, quotes, comments, line endings, encoding and BOM are preserved; only the values are now in Russian.

• Keys such as "cart.empty.title" are never translated.
• Placeholders {name}, {{count}}, %s and ICU messages (plural, select) are checked string by string: same variables, same number of times.
• In ICU plural messages, the few and many categories are added.
• Empty values, URLs, email addresses, numbers, colours, date formats, identifiers and anything marked as non-translatable are left as they are.
• If a translated value still differs from the source (missing variable, lost tag), the source value is kept and the report says so.

The report lists translated strings and those left unchanged, with the reason. Since only values change, no keys are added: if your project handles plurals with i18next-style key suffixes (_one, _other), the _few and _many keys are yours to create. Checking how the strings render in your interface is also up to you. Russian carries a surcharge: a ×1.25 coefficient on the per-word rate, counted on values only.

Preparing the file before upload

• Encoding: save the file as UTF-8. The original encoding is kept as it is, so it should be one that can hold Cyrillic.
• Whole sentences: prefer one complete message, "items": "{count, plural, …}", over two fragments like "prefix": "You have" and "suffix": "items". Russian makes the noun agree with the number; two pieces translated separately cannot agree.
• Placeholder position: avoid dropping {name} or {city} mid-sentence where the word would need a different case; put it after a colon or at the end of the label.
• Names to keep in Latin script: for a brand or product name that must stay as it is, check how it is handled in the free sample, then in the delivered translation.
• Word count: only words in values are counted, so long, deeply nested keys do not add to the quote.

Checking the result in your app

1. Read the report: a string left in the source language is either non-translatable or had a placeholder or tag mismatch the translation could not resolve.
2. Test plurals with 1, 2, 5, 11, 21 and 22: you should see «файл», «файла», «файлов», «файлов», «файл», «файла».
3. Go through narrow screens (menus, buttons, tabs, mobile notifications) to catch overflow and clipping; allow line wrapping or truncation with a tooltip.
4. Check the font in every weight: a bold weight loaded without Cyrillic glyphs falls back to another typeface.
5. Check the register: Russian interfaces usually address the user with the polite «вы». The free sample shows you the tone before you pay.

In practice

1. Upload the source JSON file in UTF-8 and choose Russian: the quote appears at once, based on the words in values.
2. Read the free sample to judge the tone and how brand names are handled.
3. Pay, then download the Russian file and its report from your account.
4. Drop the file into your project (for example ru.json), add _few and _many keys if you use suffixed plurals, then test plurals and narrow screens.