Background information

If you’re interested in expanding your business into Sweden, don’t make the costly mistake of neglecting to get a professional translator, preferably one certified by the MITI or a similar organization.

I say “costly mistake” because trying to save money on Swedish translations can result in a lot of missed revenue. It may lead to a less than optimal, or even an unprofessional impression with a bad translation that doesn’t resonate with your target market.

This can make the difference between success and failure. A better way of saving money on translation costs is to provide your translator with clarifying information.

Some of my clients provide almost too much information, making it hard to sift through and get started. Others provide too little, making it hard to know what style is expected etc. Here are some guidelines to providing key info for your translator.

Top 3 key info for your translator

Target market

In many languages, different words are used depending on your audience. You might use different pronouns for speaking to children, for example, than you would use if you were speaking to adults. You’re buying translation services, so use the expertise of your translator, who knows this and a myriad of other subtleties of language. By telling her as much as you can about your target market, you’ll be allowing her to make decisions on syntax you haven’t thought of or might not be aware of.

Explanations and style

Every day at work, you use words that are familiar to you but mysterious to anyone who doesn’t do the kind of work you do.An accountant speaks of “costs” for example and distinguishes between “variable costs,” those that change proportional to the volume you produce and “fixed costs,” those that don‘t.He may further distinguish between “standby fixed costs,” those that occur by simply owning a factory and “program fixed costs,” those that are locked in once you decide whether to operate two shifts or one, for example.

If it’s necessary or useful to use some jargon that your translator may not be familiar with in your copy, explain it. Have your copy read by someone outside your field to point out jargon that you may not even be aware you’re using.

Timeline that accounts for QA

English is a complex language with lots of rules of grammar. You think it’s easy because you speak it every day, generally with people who live near you and have the same level of education you have. But you could be making technical mistakes every day that don’t interfere with communication because they are generally accepted by you and your peers, but can shipwreck an exact translation. Get your English copy read by someone who understands the subjunctive case before you invest in translating it. And be sure to provide your translator a reasonable amount of time to complete proofreading and quality checks!

A checklist of key info for your translator

1. The text in editable format is preferred, so I can use a translation memory tool. This will ensure consistency for both current material, old material, and future material.
2. Information on the end client is, preferred style, whether the material will be published externally or if it is internal company communication.
3. A reasonable deadline. A professional translator translates on average about 2,500 words per day with good quality.
4. Whether the text will be proofread/edited by a second linguist or not, or if I should find a proofreader/editor for the text.
5. If possible, provide a glossary with preferred terms, definitions of acronyms and proper nouns that should be left untranslated
6. A purchase order stating the agreed rate for the project, deadline, payment terms, your address and contact information
7. An email address and/or a telephone number to a contact person who will be available to answer questions that might arise during the translation process
8. Any feedback from the client after they have received the translation

Hire a professional English-Swedish translator

Using a professional translator is akin to hiring a professional electrician; it may cost a little more to pay someone for something you think you can get done cheaper. However, is it cheaper if your house burns down because of something a professional would avoid?

Save money on professional translations by providing key info for your translator and a clear explanation of your target market and goals.

This article explains 5 aspects of Swedish business culture with an Anglo perspective in mind.

Science and Technology Center

Sweden is an advanced nation known for its high-tech market, so it should come as no surprise that business opportunities in Sweden are geared toward tech-savvy companies.

If your team has the knowledge and skills to stand proud alongside Swedish engineers and techies, keep reading to learn about 4 big opportunities for U.S. companies in Sweden.

1. Information Technology (IT)
Sweden is an IT superstar, consistently ranked among the top countries in the world in terms of networked readiness, global connectedness, and ability to use the Internet to improve people’s lives.

However, this doesn’t mean there’s no room left for U.S. companies. Providing IT solutions to growing industries like education, healthcare, and business infrastructure and services presents a huge opportunity for techies interested in the Swedish market.

2. Healthcare and the Life Sciences
The healthcare industry is one of the biggest and fastest-growing on the planet. Healthcare is an especially profitable field in highly-developed countries like Sweden, where advances in technology and an aging population present new opportunities to improve the human condition.

Better yet, Sweden enjoys the highest per capita expenditures on life science research in Europe, creating an enviable environment for pharmaceutical companies and other players in the healthcare field.

3. Renewable Energy
As illustrated by viral international news reports that that Sweden has run out of garbage, Sweden’s commitment to renewable energy and sustainable living is difficult to rival.

As the country continues to move toward an even “greener” future, business opportunities in Sweden are plentiful for companies interested in the following areas:

Bioenergy
Biofuels
Solar power
Wind power
Geothermal heating
Waste-to-energy systems
Sustainable wastewater treatment
Electric vehicles

4. Manufacturing and Materials Technology
With plentiful natural resources, highly-skilled engineers, and a network of R&D centers focused on materials, Sweden is an attractive location for many players in the industrial and engineering arenas, especially those who wish to develop and test new materials.

This is particularly true for companies interested in cutting-edge areas like nanomaterials, bionanotechnology, and nanoelectronics. American companies looking to enter the nanotech field may wish to begin by reviewing a listing of nanotechnology companies in Sweden.

As you can see, many of the leading business opportunities in Sweden for U.S. companies are in fields that are becoming increasingly important all over the world. That should also come as no surprise, since Sweden tends to be on the cutting edge of research and innovation.

One last thing before you go: I have a professional background in IT myself, so if you are interested in pursuing the first of the business opportunities in Sweden listed here, please stop by my software and website localization page to find out how I can become a valuable member of your team.

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This is a guest post by Jenny Brown, a freelance writer. She loves photography, travelling and learning new languages.

International websites

Translating a website isn’t as simple as putting the information into a translation tool and copying and pasting the result, and doing this without checking the translation thoroughly can have catastrophic results, often losing the meaning of the text or even changing it completely.  The writing on your website is written specifically to give information and sell your goods or services; this is its purpose, so after translating this to another language you need to ensure it is still effective in producing the desired results.  The intelligent thing to do would be to hire professional translation services that will have real life translators that can translate your website and ensure it retains its purpose.

If you do not want to, or cannot afford to, hire professional translation services to translate your website, and instead intend on translating it yourself, then there are some things you should be aware of, some things you should avoid doing at all costs:

• Avoid using a translation program, such as Google translate, to translate your website.  This will translate each word individually, but will not ensure the content as a whole retains its message or serves its purpose.
• Avoid word for word translation, rather than take each word and individually translate it to the desired language take sentences and translate those instead.  This will ensure the content makes much more sense and will keep more of the flow and structure of the writing on your website, as well as ensuring the word order in the sentences are correct as this varies greatly between languages.
• Pay particular attention to keyword research   and analysis, and always bear in mind that the keywords vary from country to country, translating the keywords from the website in its current may not have the desired result.
• When you are translating the website, try not to think using your native language, instead try to think in the language you are translating to, this will help to make the translation seem like it was completed by a native speaker of that language.
• Don’t think that just because you’ve ‘back-translated’ the text it is going to be correct.  Some people believe that if they’ve translated a, and then they translate it back again and it reads perfectly fine, that the translation worked perfectly fine, but this is not the case.
• Consider the layout of your website after you have translated it, ensure all the wording fits and nothing is missing.  Often when websites are created a space is provided specifically for a word, or a phrase, but when this word or phrase is translated it changes in length, and either may not fit well or may not fit at all, leading to some parts being missed out, which is confusing for your audience.
• Always proofread your website text after you have translated it, if possible have it read by someone who speaks the language as their native tongue, make sure it is grammatically correct, the word are spelled correctly, and that the purpose of the website remains intact.

Alternatively, you can always hire a professional translation service  to take care of everything for you, ensuring a high quality translated website for your company and enabling you to become recognised on a global scale.

Check also:

• 4 Keys Steps For Translating Your Website From English to Swedish
• 6 Fundamental Tips for Website Localization to Reach Global Markets
• Swedish Localization and Website Translation: 4 Ways Your Business Can Benefit
• Why You Should Localize Your Website to Swedish?
• Things to Think of When Developing Localization Ready Websites

Although Sweden offers an open business environment relatively free of bureaucratic red tape, doing business in Sweden can still be confusing if you don’t know where to turn for assistance.

This article will help by introducing you to 9 great resources that can get you started on the right path.

1. Sweden.se

Sweden’s official promotional website, Sweden.se provides a reliable resource for facts about Sweden. The information on this website is broken down into 6 main categories: society, culture, traditions, nature, business, and quick facts.

2. Europages.co.uk/companies/Sweden/Sweden.html

Europages is a portal for and directory of European companies intended to encourage business-to-business interactions. The link above provides a list of Swedish businesses; looking through it could be your first step to finding a local partner.

3. Startupoverseas.co.uk

Startup Overseas is a resource intended to help you launch or expand a business outside of the United Kingdom. There, you can find information about starting a business in or expanding a business to Sweden, buying a business or franchise in Sweden, and importing or exporting to Sweden, along with a list of experts ready to answer your questions about doing business in Sweden.

4. Business-Sweden.se

Jointly owned by the government of Sweden and Swedish private industry, respectively represented by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Swedish Foreign Trade Association, Business Sweden facilitates foreign investment in Swedish organizations and international growth for Swedish companies. Business Sweden can provide strategic investment advice, matchmaking and introductions to public and private Swedish companies and organizations, meeting arrangements in Sweden, and much more.

5. Swedish Chamber of Commerce for the United Kingdom

The Swedish Chamber of Commerce for the United Kingdom is a non-profit organization that promotes the exchange of ideas and experiences, along with networking and trade, between Sweden and the U.K. This organization can help you with various aspects of doing business in Sweden, including setting up introductions, references, company visits, and study visits, along with providing event management services.

6. Swedish-American Chambers of Commerce

SACC-USA is grassroots nonprofit organization that facilitates and supports trade, commerce, and investment between the U.S. and Sweden. This organization’s offerings include the Business Accelerator Program, the Swedish-American Membership Directory, the Entrepreneurial Days trade and networking event, and a Trainee Program designed to provide U.S. companies with qualified trainees from Sweden.

7. Stockholm International Fairs and Congress Centre

The Stockholm International Fairs and Congress Centre, known in Sweden as Stockholmsmässan, but colloquially called Älvsjömässan, arranges trade fairs in Sweden’s capital city, Stockholm. Stockholmsmässan’s website is a great place to find information about upcoming exhibitions and events, as well as learn how to run your own.

8. Fairlink

A subsidiary of Scandinavian Survey Group, Fairlink strives to be a center of excellence serving the conference and exhibition industry. This organization provides extensive information about and training for Swedish trade fair organizers and presenters.

9. Svensk Handel

The Swedish Trade Federation, is an organization for Swedish employers that serves the entire commerce and trade sector. This organization offers commercial development and establishment advisory services within the retail trade sector.

Of course, I also hope that I can be a helpful resource to you as you begin the process of doing business in Sweden, both through the information provided on this blog and through my professional English to Swedish translation and localization services.

I wish you the best of luck!

Check also:

First of all I would like to thank all my loyal readers of this blog. Many of you know that I am an English into Swedish translator with the company Swedish Translation Services. Here is a short presentation of Swedish Translation Services as a business.

Background of Swedish Translation Services

Swedish Translation Services was founded in 2003, when I decided to leave my career in international marketing and focus on my passion, languages. My life situation had made me bilingual in English and Swedish and my passion for writing and languages brought me to my new career, translation. I started out slowly, with small children at home, did a lot of research and self-education through the Internet and through American Translators Association, and as my children grew, so did my business. I am now a full time freelance English into Swedish translator, a grader for the American Translators Associations English into Swedish certification exam, and certified Swedish translator for the US State Language Department with several ongoing translation projects and loyal clients.

Swedish Translation Services is headquartered in Park City, Utah, USA, up in a mountain ski resort, but is yearly relocated to Sweden for a month or so. Currently, I am working from Stockholm, Sweden for a whole year, thanks to my husband’s sabbatical as a professor, and my whole family is immersed in the Swedish language and culture.

Services, Specialization and Technology

I provide professional English into Swedish translation, editing and proofreading of business communications, both internal HR-communication and external marketing communication. With a previous professional background in the IT business, I also specialize in technical documentation and software localization.

Examples of some ongoing projects are: technical help software for computers, internal and external communication for one of the largest charitable organizations in the world, marketing and client communications for a cosmetic company, software for a multinational medical company, marketing communications for Skype and communications for the Clinton Foundation. In between these I have the pleasure of doing lots of varied translation projects and I learn something new every day.

I make an effort to stay abreast on new technological developments in the translation business and use the latest translation tools to provide consistent translations, with the same layout as the original. Many of my clients have their own project management tools and I work with at least ten of these regularly. My dictionaries and language research tools are now mostly on my computer and thanks to modern technology I can easily work from two or more, different countries. More information about translation tools can be found, for example in this article on Wikipedia.

Typical work process

When offered a translation job I first look through the document(s) to make sure the texts are something I am comfortable and experienced with. This means that I want to see the document, or at least an excerpt of it, before accepting a translation project. After accepting a project, I set it up in my translation tool and make sure I have all the resources I need and that everything is clear. Often, the client has some specific instructions to read and follow, or perhaps a style guide to read through. After this, the actual translation process can start. I go through the document sentence by sentence, or sometimes paragraph, by paragraph, translate into Swedish, and highlight or comment on things that are unclear. During this process I usually have to do some terminology research online or in dictionaries, and I usually check online, or with language experts, to see which expression is more common than another.

When the first run through is done, I contact the client if something is unclear or to ask about preferred terminology. I sometimes also contact some of my trusted colleagues to ask for advice if needed, while making sure I do not reveal any confidential information.  After this step, I go through the bilingual text in the translation tool once more, proofread and make amendments according to the feedback I have received from the client. I do a spell check and “clean” the bilingual document so I get only the Swedish text. Sometimes I also perform a so called “quality assurance test”, depending on the project. This is a feature offered in translation tools and it checks for inconsistencies or untranslated sections. The last step is to read through the clean document again, proofread and do a last spell-check and layout check. When this is completed I can deliver the translation, invoice the client, and update translation memories and glossaries so I do not have to look up the same term or expression again for future projects.

Marketing and Continuing Education

When I am not translating I do administrative tasks, marketing or improve my skills. I might be contacting potential clients or updating current clients on my availability, new knowledge or expertise. I regularly take courses in translation, Swedish writing or grammar, business skills, plus on new developments in my fields of expertise. . I usually attend about two translation conferences a year, and take advantage of local networking in my field whenever time permits it. The professional associations I am a member of have been very useful to me, and I am trying to give back to the profession by also being involved in them. I am currently the chapter chair for all local groups under American Translators Association and I regularly give training and presentations in the field of marketing and translation for freelance translators. Being an entrepreneur and a freelancer means there is always something to do to grow my business.

Check also:

While I am travelling across Europe with my family. I will feature a guest post that I really like. This one is authored and provided by Affordable Language Services, a Cincinnati-based business translation and interpreting company.

In today’s global economy, business translation is a must for companies wanting to extend their reach. To help keep costs down, however, some choose to use automated translation software instead of hiring the expertise of a professional business translator. While this choice is initially less expensive, the consequences of such a shortcut can be costly. Keep reading to learn why you should not use software for your business translation needs.

 1. Translation software is never error-proof.

 In 2010, a Reuters article told the world about the underlying dangers of relying on automated software for business translations. The news story highlighted a pharmacy that used such software to translate prescription labels that were written in English into Spanish. After reviewing the results in the medical journal Pediatrics, Julia Tse and Dr. Iman Sharif pointed out several deadly errors. For example, in English, the instructions told patients to take a pill “once a day.” The translating software failed to translate the word “once” into Spanish correctly and instructed patients to take the medication 11 times per day, as the word “once” in Spanish means “eleven.” A professional business translator would never make such a mistake.

 In a separate incident, when a medical group used translating software for prostate medication labels, four prostate cancer patients in Epinal, France died because of the erroneous dosage instructions. Regardless of advances in technology, business translation software can never take the place or match the accuracy of an expert human business translator.

 2. Translation software is not sensitive to idioms.

 Language creates meaning as much as it conveys meaning. A culture in one part of the world thinks differently than the culture on the opposite end of the globe because of the ideas that differ between words and phrases. For example, the English phrase, “on the other hand,” does not mean “alternatively” in most other parts of the world.

 When brewing company Coors once tried to sell its beer in Spain, it directly translated its marketing slogan, “Turn it loose,” into Spanish. While English speakers in the U.S. understand the phrase as an encouragement to have a good time, the literal translation in Spanish relates more to the “loose” action one may encounter with diarrhea.

 3. Some words simply don’t exist in other languages.

 When a word doesn’t exist in the destination language, translation software cannot help. A business translation professional has an understanding of the culture that speaks the desired language, so he or she can accurately express the vocabulary and ideas. While an equivalent word may not exist from one language to the next, a business translator bridges the lexical gap with an appropriate phrase.

 An example of such a word is gobbledygook, which exists only in the English language. Every language has its own unique words that automated translation software cannot translate. Such a translation blunder can hinder a company’s bottom line or encourage foreign prospects to not close a deal. Professional business translation services understand these circumstances as well as the culture of the language at hand, and can provide clients with high-quality translations that aid business communications. 

 4. Automated translation software is not dialect-specific.

 In the U.S., the storage space in the back of a car is called a trunk. In the U.K, the same part of the car is called a boot. Language dialects differ around the world – and even by region. For example, some of the words used in Mexico have a different meaning in Spain. Among the 30 languages in India, there exist more than 2,000 dialects. These differences make business translation more challenging and create greater room for error when using translation software. Because business translations require specificity, a translator must know the differences among dialects to properly convey the intended meaning. Specificity and cultural knowledge are things that automated translation software lacks. 

 5. Literal translations usually don’t make sense.

 There are a few occasions when you can successfully translate a phrase into another language word-for-word. For example, the Spanish phrase “sangre azul” means “blue blood,” and both phrases refer to wealthy individuals. Most of the time, however, literal translations make no sense and confuse the true meaning. Oftentimes, idiomatic phrases are to blame. For example, when you ask someone in Costa Rica how they are, they often say, “Pura vida,” which literally means, “Pure life.” “Pura vida” in this Latin American country is a statement that expresses one is well. Outside of the Costa Rican culture, saying one has a pure life can convey a handful of different meanings.

 6. Translation software neglects sophisticated writing techniques.

 Automated translation software does not pick up on wordplay, puns and metaphors the way a human business translator can. If you use software, you run the huge risk of having your ideas get literally lost in translation, which can ultimately make you look foolish, culturally insensitive or both.

Lynn Elfers is the CEO of Affordable Language Services, a Cincinnati-based business translation and interpreting company that specializes in business, legal and medical interpreting and translation services in over 150 languages and dialects. Lynn’s experience as a volunteer missionary for years in Central America ultimately led to starting her own translation service to help individuals bridge the language gap in crucial situations like the doctor’s office and court room. She has been providing language tutoring and translation services for over 16 years.

In order to get your message across to your target audience you need to hire a professional translator. Here are the reasons why: