"What's correct isn't always right" says Swedish translator Kerstin Gustafsson when interviewed in the lingustic journal Språktidningen, referring to the nature and challange of translating. In other words: the most obvious solution – the one that first comes to mind or the one you might find in a dictionary – is not necessarily the most adequate choice. As a translator, you need to dig deeper. I believe this is true when it comes to both literary and technical translation. Is this really the right term to use in this specific context? Does this target language idiom really create the same effect or sensation as the expression in the original text?

As a translator, that's what I do: I dig deeper. That's what I enjoy when it comes to translation, and that's my foremost strength as a translator. I don't content myself with the correct solution, but twist and turn the words and dig deeper to find the expression, term or turn of phrase that is just right, whether I'm translating an automotive text for a car manual, marketing material for a website, a play, a short story or a novel.

So who am I? Well, I'm a translator and a lifelong lover of language and linguistcs – my own language, Swedish, in particular. I'm a lover of Swedish in the sense that I enjoy speaking it, writing it, pondering over its mysteries, performing plays in it, teaching it to foreigners, proofreading it and translating into it. After working as a drama teacher, living and studying in Italy and the UK, and teaching Swedish as a foreign language, I started working as a freelance translator in 2011.

As I have a passion for theatre, and experience from working within that field, I eagerly grab all given opportunities to collaborate with theatre groups and production teams. Between 2000 and 2009 I was involved in the staging of about twenty different plays, either as a playwright, a director or an actress, and when I started my university studies, it felt like a natural step to combine language and drama. I thus took courses in dramaturgy and British theatre at the University of Sheffield, followed by translation studies at Stockholm University. One of my most extensive projects at the Institute for Interpretation and Translation Studies (Stockholm University) was to translate Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine, a play that presented me with lots of linguistic and stylistic challenges. Since gaining a BA in Translation Studies and English Language, I have assisted the Polish theatre group Studium Teatralne in creating Swedish subtitles for their guest performance in Växjö, Sweden, and collaborated with the production company Leston Avenue.

Translations/Proofreading English/German/Italian/Danish --->Swedish, primarily in the following fields:

Cinema, Film, TV, drama
Education/Pedagogy
Linguistics
Literature
Psychology
Social Science, Sociology
Tourism & Travel
Marketing