The paper describes different types of interlingual asymmetry. The relations between units of the source language and the target language are asymmetrical in nature. This asymmetry can be observed on lexical and grammatical levels. Therefore, the translator may choose among various translation techniques and different variants in the target language. Asymmetry becomes more salient when comparing two language systems or comparing the usage of units of language in speech. Inerlingual asymmetry on a lexical level means that the content and the meaning of the lexical units in the source language never match their counterparts in the target language. On a grammatical level, intelingual asymmetry manifests itself in morphology (absence of some word forms, different functions of similar word forms) and syntax (different topic-comment structures). The paper deals with interlingual asymmetry in English to Russian translation and encompasses a range of aspects: asymmetry on a lexical level (word level and lexical combinations), asymmetry on a morphological level (different functions of similar morphological forms), and asymmetry on a syntactical level (unacceptable grammatical combinations and sentence structures). The research findings may be used to provide new interpretations of current theoretical assumptions, to make adjustments to courses in practical translation and to redefine methods and principles of translation quality assessment, which determines the relevance of the study.