Post by Sabeine on Apr 24, 2004 18:34:12 GMT -5
About 8 months ago I received an offer to translate some website pages for our kommun. The man in charge (my boss for this time) was a really difficult person. He was by reputation a hard to get along with man. I went into his office and he asked me why I came to Sweden, and I told him. He wanted to know how I could leave CA for cold Sweden. He had lived in my hometown of San Diego for a year. He thought I was nuts to move here. He asked me about my skills, and I said I have no translating skills. He then proceeded to in an odd way put me down. I said to him that I was sure he could find someone with more experience than me. I had never done this after all. My Swedish was not perfect but I was really trying. I worked hard in school and I really wanted this job. He told me it paid X amount of crowns and I told him that I'd take it for half of that just to get the job and the experience. About a week went by and he called and told me I had got the job. It was of course a short contract job but I have a great reference from him and our kommun which is good. By the way, he paid me the full amount. 
I worked on them and turned them in and then nothing happend. Today I went on the site and saw that they are finally online! It took me a few weeks to do the work since I go to school and work part time. Not to mention that they were changing the material all the time. When I turned in my work I was satisfied. I waited for it to be uploaded and it never was. I thought something was wrong. I called them and they said that they were in the process of it. It has taken a long time, over 8 months but now my pages are online. I also did some translating of brochures for foreign companies in countries like the UK and they were sent out this week. Yeah!
I am a bit upset since they did change quite a bit of my wording making it sound even more strange, as well as apparently not use spell check (!!) but other than that my work is finally online. www.sundbyberg.se
Click on the British flag in the right hand corner. Please keep in mind that I was given utter crap text from the beginning it sounded like translations from a bad Asian film, even in Swedish. I showed the papers to translate to a few Swedes and they said that the wording was not impresssive. I spoke to the boss in charge of this about re-wording this and he said “we would like to keep it as close to (current site) Swedish as possible.” Well we all know that many things that sounds good in Swedish does not translate well into English, and vice versa. Not without some re-wording. I submitted two different translations for the site, one that was a “Swedish” version translation where there wasn’t too much switching but to a native English speaker it doesn’t flow right. The second version was how a native English speaker would have written it. It flowed well and I was pleased. They chose the first version. I am not shocked though, my boss told me to change the wording as little as possible. If you do go onto the site, PLEASE keep this in mind!! The clumsiness of the language was not my first choice, it was there’s. But I am proud, it is still my work and it is nice to see it finally online after over 8 months of waiting. I just wished that they had double checked it, they misspelled several words.
I worked on them and turned them in and then nothing happend. Today I went on the site and saw that they are finally online! It took me a few weeks to do the work since I go to school and work part time. Not to mention that they were changing the material all the time. When I turned in my work I was satisfied. I waited for it to be uploaded and it never was. I thought something was wrong. I called them and they said that they were in the process of it. It has taken a long time, over 8 months but now my pages are online. I also did some translating of brochures for foreign companies in countries like the UK and they were sent out this week. Yeah!I am a bit upset since they did change quite a bit of my wording making it sound even more strange, as well as apparently not use spell check (!!) but other than that my work is finally online. www.sundbyberg.se
Click on the British flag in the right hand corner. Please keep in mind that I was given utter crap text from the beginning it sounded like translations from a bad Asian film, even in Swedish. I showed the papers to translate to a few Swedes and they said that the wording was not impresssive. I spoke to the boss in charge of this about re-wording this and he said “we would like to keep it as close to (current site) Swedish as possible.” Well we all know that many things that sounds good in Swedish does not translate well into English, and vice versa. Not without some re-wording. I submitted two different translations for the site, one that was a “Swedish” version translation where there wasn’t too much switching but to a native English speaker it doesn’t flow right. The second version was how a native English speaker would have written it. It flowed well and I was pleased. They chose the first version. I am not shocked though, my boss told me to change the wording as little as possible. If you do go onto the site, PLEASE keep this in mind!! The clumsiness of the language was not my first choice, it was there’s. But I am proud, it is still my work and it is nice to see it finally online after over 8 months of waiting. I just wished that they had double checked it, they misspelled several words.
