You have probably run into quite a few loanwords from English in Russian. Some of them are older and almost sound native, e.g. футбол – soccer or лифт – elevator. However, recently a new wave of loanwords related to the economy and technology has entered Russian. These words are still largely perceived as foreign, and they pose a challenge to learners of Russian, too. You see, a lot of them don’t mean what they sound like. I have put together a list of words you are likely to hear in a modern office setting that you shouldn’t rely on your knowledge of English to figure out. All examples come from the Russian National Corpus; all translations are mine.

1. Офис

The trouble starts with the word “офис.” It certainly looks like it should mean office, and it does, but in a very specific context. Офис refers to the office, premises, headquarters, or seat of a modern style, for-profit company, likely in the financial, travel, insurance, banking, or other free-market sector. Unlike in English, you don’t normally refer to the room where someone works as an офис — that is called кабинет.

Региональный офис компании Nestle отвечает за проведение акций российского масштаба, стимулирует продажи внутри региона.

[Nestle’s regional office is in charge of country-wide campaigns in Russia and boosting sales in the region.]

Новый босс вызвал меня на другой день в свой кабинет.

[The following day my new boss called me to his office.]

2. Файл

You guessed it — файл does not match all the meanings of the English word “file.” It can certainly refer to a file on your computer, but, more surprisingly, it refers to plastic sheet protectors, which are very popular in Russia.

― Вот, ― склонившись над бюро, он выкатил ящик, достал пластиковый файл, ― тут все протоколы милицейских мудрецов и свидетельства очевидцев.

[– Here, — he bent over the cabinet, pulled out a drawer, and took out a plastic sheet protector, — here are all the police reports and eyewitness testimony.]

Полученный файл вы сможете закачать на iPod с помощью программы iTunes.

[You can send the downloaded the file to your iPod using iTunes.]

3. Бейдж

Бейдж is actually a name tag. It is sometimes affectionately shortened to бейджик. A police badge is called жетон.

Девушка в форменном костюмчике стояла с будто наклеенной улыбкой. На ее груди белел бейджик: «Варвара».

[A woman in a standard-issue suit was sporting a glued-on smile. A bright white nametag on her chest read “Varvara.”]

4. Ноутбук

Ноутбук is a laptop computer, although you can hear some people say лэптоп. A notebook is записная книжка or, if you are talking about a school notebook, тетрадь.

Первым ей бросился в глаза не литровый керамический чайник на столе, а мощный ноутбук с большим экраном.

[The thing that jumped out at her first was not the liter ceramic kettle on the table, but the bulky laptop with a large screen.]

5. Бизнес

Бизнес only normally refers to a modern for-profit enterprise in the finance or sales sector — the kind that works out of an офис. It is not normally used to talk about pre-90s businesses, regardless of their nature. If you want to say that someone started a business and that business was, say, a tailor shop, you would probably say “открыть своё дело.”

Бизнес почтовых денежных переводов, в силу своей прибыльности, может стать основным видом такого сотрудничества почтовых систем разных стран.

[Thanks to its profitability, the postal money transfer business may become the main cooperation venue for various national postal systems.]

Пока они сидят в аудитории и слушают лекции, их сверстники делают карьеру менеджера по продажам или открывают своё дело.

[While they are listening to a lecture in a classroom, their peers are pursuing a career as a sales manager or starting their business.]

6. Дизайн

Дизайн refers to the graphic or interior design, so there needs to be a strong esthetic or usability component to it. If you are talking about the design of a new machine, there are several ways to express that. Depending on the context and the industry, it can be расчёт, проектирование, and so on.

Конечно, дизайн ― вопрос спорный, и каждый решает сам для себя понятие о красоте, но равнодушных людей почти нет.

[Of course, one may argue about (visual) design, and everyone decides on their own idea of beauty. However, hardly anyone is left indifferent.]

За проектирование московских высоток взялись лучшие архитекторы мира.

[The world’s best architects have embarked on designing Moscow high-rise buildings.]

7. Имидж

Имидж, on the contrary, is usually figurative. Rather than describe a visual image (изображение), it talks about someone’s brand image or public persona. It can describe both people and entities.

Основной вывод этого опроса следующий: имидж финансовой компании полностью зависит от качества работы центра телефонного обслуживания.

[The survey’s main conclusion is that a financial company’s image is fully dependent on its call center performance.]

8. Мерчендайзер

This is many of the newer loanwords many Russians frown upon. It is basically a glorified way to refer to a shelf-stocker in a store.

Поэтому считать, что мерчендайзер ― человек, специализирующийся на том, чтобы замечать «где что плохо лежит», не совсем правильно.

[Therefore, it would not be quite right to think that a merchandiser is a person responsible for seeing when things are out of line.]

9. Провайдер

Провайдер is not any kind of provider but specifically your Internet service provider.

Провайдер ― это компания, которая обеспечивает своим клиентам доступ в Интернет.

[An ISP is a company offering Internet access to its clients.]

10. Пиар

By this point, few will be surprised to hear that пиар is not really PR (public relations). Public relations, as in a department that issues statements for the press for an organization, is связи с общественностью. That is a neutral term. Пиар usually implies some sort of manipulation of public opinion, so it is really closer to a “PR campaign.” A funny usage of this term is чёрный пиар — a smear campaign against political or business rivals.

В том, что на каждых выборах нас захлестывает «черный пиар», трудно сомневаться.

[There is no arguing that we are flooded with smear campaigns come election time.]

I hope this will help you beware of English lookalikes in Russian. Many of these words have developed a life of their own since they entered Russian.