I moved to Sweden in 1998 as an exchange student during my last year of college. Before deciding to pursue my passion for health and fitness, I taught public relations at Uppsala University and also worked as a freelance translator. In the beginning I took any translation job I was offered, but after once fighting my way through a 60-page handsaw catalog, I started to be more specific. I did get a lot of work within the advertising/PR field due to my position at the university, and after a few years I was offered a position as an in-house translator/editor for one of Sweden's best PR & lobbying firms.
Since the firm had quite a few financial communication clients but only one translator, I learned to use Trados to translate annual and interim reports. I did this for two years until my desire for a new life led me to a house in the country, two dogs, and a day job as a personal trainer and fitness instructor.
I now spend most of my time working with bodies, but I still love words, and I am especially passionate about my subject area. Being able to communicate about health, fitness, wellness and medicine in a credible and reliable way is becoming more valuable by the day as we are bombarded by conflicting research reports and false promises of miracle foods and instant health solutions. I find that there are valuable synergies between the hands-on practice and the communication/translation work in this field.
I am a member of the Swedish Association of Professional Translators, and I am also a registered SDL vendor for medical translations. |