In a world where physical location has lost its meaning, chances are you can find a Swedish speaker in a large company. When documents like contracts or press releases need to be translated, many businesses might be tempted to rely on their multilingual employees as translators. On the surface, this makes sense. Not only do they know your product inside and out, but they also won’t need to get paid any extra for the work.  

So, if it saves you time and money, what’s the harm in leaning on Anna in Marketing for that English to Swedish translation? Here are some good reasons not to use your employees as translators.

5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Let Your Swedish Employees Do Your Company’s Translations

In most cases, letting existing staff handle your translations does more harm than good. It can not only damage your company’s reputation but also lengthen the globalization timeline and erode employee relationships. There are several reasons not to do this, including:

1. Being Bilingual Doesn’t Make You a Translator

Contrary to what people think, there’s more to translation than swapping one word for another. There are idioms, metaphors, nuance, and gendered language to consider. Being able to speak another language isn’t the be-all, end-all it’s a prerequisite. Becoming a certified translator takes years of practice and ample education.

2. The Productivity Costs

While you might be impressed with Anna’s Swedish, that’s not why you hired her. Likely, you were impressed by her love of marketing knowledge and strategic skills. The stellar references and 10 years of marketing experience just sealed the deal. Let her do what she is good at, marketing, not translation and linguistics. Furthermore, the time she spends translating must come from somewhere. This means less time spent creating marketing campaigns.

3. It Doesn’t Save You Money

Even if the document isn’t something that can open you up to legal repercussions, attempts to cut translation costs often end up doing the opposite. Frederick Douglass once said, “It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Though translated documents aren’t children, the same principle holds. Getting things right the first time is easier than constantly fixing shoddy work. Hiring a professional Swedish translator is often the more affordable option.

4. A Lack of Tools

To do translation well, you need preferred glossaries, external proofreaders, and a computer assisted translation software. Most businesses won’t invest in these for one-off projects. Professional Swedish translators already have these things in their toolbelts and incorporate their use into their rates. Hiring them allows you to reap the benefits of these tools without the budget battles.

5. Cultural Sensitivity Issues

Just speaking Swedish doesn’t mean Julie has a true understanding of Sweden’s culture. Even if she grew up there, things change. What was once acceptable, and trendy may now be wrong. Since translators make a living connecting with audiences in their target language, they often obsess with staying up to date on current options.

Ready to Let Anna Get Back to Marketing?

Now that you know better than to hand off your Swedish translations to the first bilingual person you come across, it’s time to find a qualified translator! Instead of using employees as translators, you need to find someone who’s experienced and strives to stay up to date on the latest language developments. It also wouldn’t hurt to hire someone knowledgeable in marketing and transcreation. 

If you need Swedish marketing translations, transcreations, or localizations, I’d love to help out.  Looking to expand outside of the Baltic countries? My wide network of linguists and translators means I can help you find a colleague in that field.  To get started, fill out my contact form or visit my About page for more information about my qualifications.

Check also:

• How Much Does a Swedish Translation Cost? Pricing Swedish Translations
• What Cheap English to Swedish Translation Really Costs You!
• Swedish Translation vs. Transcreation: Which Is Right for You? 
• When to Choose Machine Translation vs. a Professional Translation
• Effective Budgeting for Your Technical Translation Project

The old idiom “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” doesn’t just apply to Italy – it’s imperative when expanding your business in Sweden, too! Anytime your business wishes to serve another country, you’ll need to learn the way they do business and adapt your practices to meet their needs.

Just as you wouldn’t extend your hand to a Japanese CEO or use your left hand in Indonesia, you must also understand what’s acceptable and what’s forbidden when discussing and conducting business in Sweden.

One of the most critical elements when growing your footprint in Sweden is to master the way they speak. Using the correct terminology and adapting to the local vernacular will be party responsible for your success or failure.

Let’s look at some core business concepts in Sweden and how you can prepare your business for international success.

Core Business Concepts in Sweden

A country’s business is often based on the foundation of the country’s values. In Sweden, those values embody all aspects of modesty, equality, and respect for human rights. They’re an inclusive society that makes distinctions based on nationality rather than race or appearances. Socialist ideals are in abundance, along with an extensive welfare system.

In business, respect and consideration go a long way when arranging meetings, discussing topics, or making negotiations.

Most notable are the following:

• It’s customary to arrange meetings two weeks in advance.
• Business cards are shared at the beginning of meetings.
• Meetings are often informal enough to use a first-name basis.
• Small talk is virtually non-existent.
• Decisions aren’t often made during first meetings.
• Decisions usually require group consensus.
• Peak holiday periods are February through March and June through August.
• Refreshment breaks, called fika, are often used for informal meetings.

Understandably, it’s just as important to understand how to conduct business in Sweden as it is to talk about business in Sweden. American customs don’t directly translate into the Swedish business culture, and believing otherwise could be just as damaging as a linguistic mistranslation.

Swedish Translation Services Are Business Must-Haves

If you’re targeting the Swedish market, Investing in Swedish translation services is non-negotiable. Proper translations ensure you’re not only using the right vernacular, but also following proper business policy and practices for the Swedish business culture.

A professional translator helps you bridge this wide (and often scary) gap between American and Swedish business ideologies. Translators shift away from word-to-word translation in favor of localized linguistics that match the appropriate business cases.

To find out more about Swedish translation services and how translators can help you navigate the specifics of international business, contact Tess for a free consultation.

Check also:

• Swedish Culture 101: Holidays, Key Facts, Typical Traits & More
• 5 “Odd” Features of Swedish Business Culture that Actually Make Sense
• Don’t Let Cultural Ignorance Ruin Your Perfectly Good Translation (and Brand!)

This is a guest post by Albert Brown

Why translation services needed?

In general perception, global economy doesn’t come to our mind when we consider interpretation services. We normally think of it as somebody having a thorough knowledge of the root and destination languages, who helps others to understand some different languages and let the communication process flow between two or more people. Translation service has a huge contribution in helping people to overcome the language barrier. But did you know it also plays a significant part in boosting the global economy?

For a company preparing to step into the global market, translation service is a must to function properly. Companies may be doing business on a giant scale in and around their local area but when they want to expand out, they’re almost unknown in their target market and require a lot of hard work to get themselves introduced. Interpretation services bridge the gap between these companies and locals of the target country.

Without language services, it is impossible for a company to improve its own financial standing as well as contribute towards the global economy. To make a footprint in the global market, it is the first and foremost criteria for a company to join hands with a good translation service provider. It greatly enhances the client relationship along with helping it strengthen its position in the global marketplace.

Issue on the translation of economics

In today’s world of information society and globalization, when global economy mainly depends on the distribution and production process along with communication and information, language services play a key role. Banks and other financial institutions operate in various languages to increase their customer base. Multinational companies release documents in various languages for the sake of service expansion and to reach every corner of the global market.

With the increasing growth of “LCCS” or “low-cost country sourcing” where a company imports materials from the countries with lower production and labor costs like Brazil, China, India and Eastern Europe to decrease operational costs, the need of translating franchise agreements, contracts, financial documents, company documents and associated documentations is growing rapidly. Interpretation services occupy a centralized position in the prospective cross-border “M&A” (mergers and acquisitions) which mainly depends on effective and efficient exchange of information between all the involved parties responsible for the transaction.

For addressing this, many research avenues are created that are connected to economic and technical translation services and the challenges related to it. Unlike other subject-related translations like technical translation and legal translation, economic translation has become an uncommon topic of special issues of TS (Translation Studies) journals. As an outcome, economic translation research is spread over various publications and aims at some chosen isolated issues. Such language services mostly focus on the economic terminologies.

Why is translation so important in the global economy?

Translation applications act like important resources for both the translators and normal people and the sale and design of these apps and various web-paced platforms are a flourishing segment in the language industry. A translation project creates numerous job openings distributed among various platforms.

Many language services companies that manage high volume translation projects employ not only translators but graphic/formatting artists, proofreaders, project managers and administrative staff who look after the project requirements. Hiring of such professionals is done by scouting for talent across the globe. All of this jointly contributes to a flourishing translation industry, which is forecasted to reach $37 billion by the year 2018 throughout the world.

Advice on language service

Communication languages usually undergo a change along with a change in the global business mode. Economic development has significantly impacted the popular communication languages used for international businesses.

Accordingly, it has developed the popularity of admissions in various second language courses in universities and colleges. Though it’s difficult to talk about the exact way that would help someone learn a language as his/her second language, such learning does help to enhance the overall employability for sure. Spanish, French, Mandarin, Arabic, Chinese, American Sign Language, Russian, German and Portuguese are some of the languages worth learning.

Before going out to learn a new language, some important factors need to be taken into consideration. These include your future plans after learning the language such as availing a job in a global business, working overseas, becoming an interpreter or opting for a job in the government sector.

How translation improves the economy

Economic growth of a country depends upon various factors. One of the most significant factors that contribute to the economic development is the total count of industries that manufacture quality products or provide quality services. It has been observed that a country with developed economy helps the services and industries to grow rapidly.

Thus, industrial development and economic development are dependent on each other. The translation industry, especially the business and technical translation services sectors, have developed rapidly over the last few years. This sector has excellent growth opportunity, especially in the countries where each day a new business avenue is opening up in the market and opportunities are overflowing as a result of globalization.

The local markets too are flooded with foreign products and a significant number of foreign countries are rendering their services in these local markets. It has been observed that in a developed economical condition, the cross-border exchange is not merely restricted to products and services. Rather, it extends to a significant amount of cultural exchange as well.

This exchange is directly connected to economic development. After all, more economical development means more cultural exchange. Interpretation services play a key role in bridging the gap between two cultures, thus helping in the exchange of literature, knowledge, services and products and much more.

Author Bio:

Albert Brown, passionate writer & translation consultant. He is fond of reading about different cultures & traditions being followed across the world. He loves visiting new places and learning different languages. Reading and writing about the importance of language and its variations is something that keeps him busy during free time. Guiding people about the right source is something he is known for. Find out more about Albert’s company – Translation Excellence here.

Check also:

• 10 SEO Tips for Web Localization for Global Markets
• Going Global? Translators Can Help You Break the Barrier of Language!
• 6 Tips for Writing English for a Global Audience

This is a guest post from Aniello Attianese from Language Reach. 

The world of business is changing rapidly. A trend towards globalisation and expanding businesses abroad, especially with the recent growth of internet, is something that I, working for a professional translation agency, personally see rather clearly. A lot of the businesses from every corner of the world, even small and medium sized, see a truly great opportunity in approaching new international customers and exploring new markets. Many business owners who require our professional translation services however do not realise that translating word for word sometimes simply isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the whole answer, especially when working on marketing material, such as websites; this is where localisation comes into play.

Budgeting for Localisation on a Global Scale

Companies and businesses around the world now spend great portions of their budgets each year for marketing efforts; paying close attention to crafting the perfect message, choosing the right colours or even the right font. But what if they were only to discover, that their perfect marketing material which worked flawlessly in one country, causes offence in another? Having marketing material which is culturally inappropriate will certainly cause more damage than good.

In simple words, localisation amends and adopts content, such as websites or brochures, in order for it to be suitable within a specific market by removing any local sensitivities. Global companies such as Apple or McDonald’s have values and ideas which they like to communicate to consumers across the world, without causing any misunderstandings within any country specific market. This is the reason each of their campaigns is not only very carefully translated, but also localised to suit their specific foreign target market.

The Trouble With Ignoring Localisation

American Airlines on the other hand are a perfect example of a company who decided not to trouble with localisation, and only to translate their marketing material word-for-word. After introducing their new stylish leather seats on the planes, AA came up with a slogan which in America worked perfectly fine: “Fly in leather”.  Not carefully localised for the Mexican market however, the message caused the operator to blush slightly as “Fly naked” wasn’t very appealing to the Spanish speaking customers…The lack of localisation in the above example is pretty obvious, and not only caused the airline to embarrassment but also to money loses.

Words however aren’t the only thing which can be a cause for concern if marketing material wasn’t carefully localised. Another great example would be the use of colours. Did you know, that in China the colour white is associated with death? Now, you wouldn’t want your products or services to be associated with such, would you?

Benefits of Localisation

Going back to McDonald’s example, you’ll be able to see good, if not great, use of localisation services. The fast food chain restaurant not only localised all of their marketing messages, but they also went a step further and localised their menus, which are perfectly localised for each of their markets. And so in New Zealand for example you will be able to order a Kiwi Burger while McDonald’s India offers chicken Maharaja!

Giving that both U.S and Sweden are rather specific markets, with different cultures, values and ideas, localising marketing material for the Swedish audience should really be a priority for any U.S business thinking of approaching the Swedish consumers. Taking into the account any local sensitivities such as religious, political or cultural differences can have a significant impact on the success of your brand in a foreign market, and although localisation simply cannot guarantee an instant success, the lack of it can guarantee instant failure.

Aniello Attianese comes from Pagani, Italy. He speaks Italian, French and German fluently and has just started learning Swedish. He currently works for Language Reach and Translation Services 24 as a translator and a project manager. In his spare time he enjoys travelling and good music as much as he enjoys learning languages.

Check also: