Translation into Swedish

Conventional translation – with the aim of delivering perfectly translated copy that conveys the writer’s intention and tone of voice at least as well as in the original language – preferably better. This is the self-evident level for marketing copy, specialised literature, annual reports, sustainability reports and other documents with a specific tonality that must not be lost or compromised.

Machine translation with post-editing, including terminology and consistency checks and quality assurance – with the aim of delivering a technically, terminologically and linguistically 100% correct translation that unfailingly conveys your message – but doesn’t have to aim for the highest literary quality. This level is suitable for e.g. internal information, instruction manuals for non-critical products, data sheets and quarterly reports. With this level, the total price of the translation can often be significantly reduced.

CAT stands for Computer-Aided Translation, a technology that came into use in the 1990s and that nearly all specialist translators today use. A CAT tool is basically a database manager, which memorises each translated sentence and suggests the previous translation every time the same or a similar sentence, or a key term, comes up in a document.

The idea is that the translator should never have to do the same work twice – and to ensure complete linguistic and terminological consistency throughout a big project, or between an original and an updated version of a document.

As the translator works, they build up a termbase – a database of key terms in the text that must always be translated the same way.

This means that you as the client have everything to gain from using the same translator every time. You automatically get consistent terminology, and as my database grows with copy about your products, I can offer a better and better price for new translations on the same subject.

There are many CAT tools on the market. I primarily use the tool memoQ, and also teach translation students how to use it in various courses.

Machine translation came along in the early 2000s, with fairly mediocre results. Today, machine translation is based on AI and large language models (LLMs),and delivers a completely different quality than just a few years ago.

Machine translation is hotly debated. The technology can boost a translator’s productivity, but also leads to unexpected errors that are often hard to spot. Many translation buyers who have tested free services for machine translation have discovered that the cost of incorrect information, linguistic shortcomings, leaked business secrets and a damaged reputation can be significantly higher than what they saved with a cheap translation. Machine translation on its own is not an alternative for anything beyond personal correspondence, internal communication within a company, or to get an idea of what a document in a foreign language is about.

Machine translation must always be combined with post-editing – that’s what’s called MTPE, Machine Translation Post-Editing (you might also see it as PEMT, Post-Editing of Machine Translation). In practice, MTPE is always done in a CAT tool – because the CAT tool’s consistency-checking and quality-assurance features, in the hands of an experienced translator, are invaluable for elevating a rough machine translation to an acceptable level.
Another aspect of machine translation is confidentiality. Free online machine translation engines use all text that is fed into them to improve their performance. You as a user can’t know who will see your confidential information. I work solely with ISO 27001:2013-certified machine translation suppliers, which offer a private data area and guarantee encryption and complete privacy: no eyes other than the translator’s will see the texts.

Modern translation involves a lot of data processing – and that always means a risk that valuable information gets lost or falls into the wrong hands.

Every file that comes to or leaves Tecnita AB goes through a VPN tunnel and is saved on mirrored encrypted hard drives, in an encrypted back-up server in the office and in a cloud storage service with end-to-end encryption that meets the international information security standard ISO 27001:2013.

All computers have firewalls and protection against harmful code (aka computer viruses), which are updated daily.

All machine translation is done in a private data area at a machine translation supplier that meets ISO 27001:2013 – no one other than me sees the information processed and it is not stored by the supplier.

Computers break sometimes – and always at the worst possible time. That must not impact my pace of work, so my computer is continuously mirrored by a back-up computer on stand-by.

The office has an alarm connected to an alarm centre and is kitted with a back-up power source, as well as an alternative heat source, to ensure its function without external electricity and heat for at least 48 hours.