Swedish Translation Doesn’t Have to Be Difficult
When your company enters the Swedish market, you’ll need to have robust Swedish translation resources on tap to make the most revenues. You’ll need to hire a competent translation company, which is daunting for some enterprises.
As it turns out, Swedish translation isn’t nearly as difficult than you may expect at first glance—so long as your company has the right support.
What Content Appeals To Swedes?
A report authored by Timetric and published via RNR Market Research suggests that the household consumption rate of Swedes is rapidly rising alongside wages, which are increasing at a rate of 3.4 percent per year since 2013.
This means that luxury goods and more expensive goods will soon experience a growing market. If your company wants to take advantage of this market, you’ll need to translate your marketing content and your product content.
Much like other countries in the West and in Europe especially, Swedes speak multiple languages fluently, have a high standard of living, and have a generous social safety net.
According to a 2006 report by the EU Commission Special Eurobarometer, nearly 90 percent of Swedes speak English. Of those 90 percent, nearly all are proficient at a fluent or near-fluent level.
In other words, Swedes may be more sensitive to errors in translation than people in other markets. In other markets, people might have to make do with a poor translation, especially if it is the only one for their language.
Likewise, they might not be multilingual or their competence in another language might be limited.
This is doubly true in markets that have a relatively rare language. But not for Sweden. Because Swedes are multilingual and also heavily integrated with the economy of Europe, their language isn’t as much of a barrier to accessing the products they want.
If Swedish people are reading a piece of content or interacting with a product, they know that they can get it elsewhere if the translation isn’t very good. In fact, many Swedes can simply read the English version of your site if the Swedish version isn’t up to par.
This means that Swedes can be vulnerable to a bad customer experience if your Swedish translation partner isn’t as fluent in Swedish as they say.
For the roughly 10 percent of Swedes who don’t have knowledge of English, a poor translation might be a bigger barrier, however. You can expect to lose access to that portion of the market if your Swedish translations are subpar.
Picking The Right Translation Company For Sweden
As with many larger markets, the Swedish market for translation services is highly competitive, so you’ll get a great translation if you’re willing to pay market rate.
There are a few peculiarities of the Swedish translation market which your company will need to be aware of, however.
First, the Swedish market for translation services is heavily fragmented, according to Swedish translation consultant Anna-Marie Colliander Lind.
There are several mid-size translation companies and a handful of smaller companies, and no single company has a dominating market share.
You may have a hard time finding the right translation company because many of them might be too small to meet your needs. Picking between several of the mid-sized companies may also cause a problem because there aren’t necessarily many differentiating factors between them.
Prices are higher for Swedish translation services than with translation services for more common languages as a result.
Furthermore, the Swedish government is the largest purchaser of translation services.
So, while your company’s business is valuable to Swedish companies, they don’t necessarily need you as a customer if they are getting regular contracts from the government, which means they can afford to be picky.
When paired with the fact that Swedes can often access the content produced by non-Swedish markets too, most translation companies need to provide a top-notch service to be noticed.
Preparing To Work With A Translation Agency
Once your company is ready to enter the Swedish market, your professional translation services provider will need to get to work on the Swedish translation of your content.
The good news is that Swedish translation does not require much cultural localization expertise, so your content and product won’t require too much adaptation or heavy modification to be successfully localized.
Your company should expect for Swedish translation to be performed relatively quickly and with no cost overruns as a result.
Before your company contacts a translation agency, you’ll need to do some prep work which will help start things off smoothly. The more prepared your company is for working with the translation services, the smaller the bill will be.
Just remember that there are a handful of taxes on service-based work in Sweden.
Check out these 40 Questions to Expect from a Translation Agency, which will help you to answer key questions that the translation agency will ask.
