Translator—a Lovely Profession

by Karin Almegård Nörby

Translated by Monica Scheer

“I have a lovely profession,” says Monica Scheer, who has been a

translator for Swedish Television for more than 30 years. And she speaks
with enthusiasm about language and words and about trying to imagine
how other people express themselves.
She was lucky, she says, once upon a time, when she got the job at
Swedish Television. Her studies of English and French should really have
resulted in a profession as a language teacher. But one day she saw a
feature on the TV news where translators were sitting with earphones on,
translating from a tape recorder. It seemed so interesting that she
applied for a job at Swedish Television. And she got it. Monica Scheer
has had one of the now eight permanent jobs as a television subtitler for
34 years. The television company also employs around 80 freelance
subtitlers.
English, French, Italian and then Russian, which she learned in later
years, are “her” languages. And nowadays she claims to be so egoistic
that she does not want to teach others, only continue to learn herself.
But that is probably not altogether true. Monica Scheer is happy to
convey in different contexts what she knows about translation and tells
people of her experience. She has for instance given lectures on TV
translation at the University of Stockholm for the translation courses in
French and Russian.
To get a job as a TV translator you have to have at least 40 academic
points or the equivalent knowledge of two, preferably three, foreign
languages. It also requires a documented feeling for the Swedish
language and its shades of meaning; you must be a good stylist and
have a concern for correct language. Furthermore, there are informal
criteria for becoming a good translator, criteria that are not very easy to
define. Among other things, it’s a question of empathy into the way
people express themselves. “You have to be a little bit of a writer,” says
Monica.
“It is a creative profession but within frames set by someone else. I
work with a living dialogue. You must enter into other people’s way of
thinking and their way of expressing themselves. How would this 80-
year-old lady formulate herself, or this young boy of 15? Especially that
bit, to try to put oneself into another person’s shoes is what makes the
job such fun,” she says.

Moments of bliss

Monica mostly translates drama, feature films, interviews etc. The TV

translator has got two lines of 34 spaces each to summarize what is said
in 6 seconds. The work thus has its restrictions. “I may have found a
smashing phrase—and then it is one letter to long.”
The text should also be timed accurately. A decision has to be made—
exactly where are those think units where the subtitle has to change? A
think unit is a keyword for Monica. The two thirds of the dialogue that
gets into the subtitle must be accurately timed.
An important quality for a translator is suspiciousness, she says. “No
one claims that I have to know every word in the film, but I must
understand when I don’t understand. Guessing is not recommended.
Neither is skipping something that you have not understood. Even if it
could be tempting, since the translation always means shrinking the
dialogue. But of course you have got to know that what you omit is really
something that is not essential to the context.”

Moments of bliss: “For instance when you have been listening to a tape
over and over again and you are unable to make out what they are
saying, you consult your colleagues, and then finally, after the
umpteenth time, someone grasps what is actually being said.”

The contrary? “Well, that is when you are at home watching a program
that you have translated and you realize that that was not the best way
to express it.— Though you dare not watch that often,” Monica adds with
a laugh.
Eavesdrops

“Re-melting” is another concept that Monica Scheer frequently uses to

explain the art of translating. “He who has a natural talent for the job
should be able to re-melt,” she says. This is also something that you
cannot learn in the same way that you can learn the technical side of the
job. This re-melting is also one of the most thrilling things in everyday
translating life. Monica tells us with enthusiasm how she trains her
aptitude for re-melting. She eavesdrops on the bus in order to learn new
ways of expression, or starts a conversation with someone who seems to
be interesting. In Swedish or Italian or Russian or French...
It’s easy to feel envious of such language skills that allow fluent
conversation in a series of different languages. Nevertheless, it requires
hard and continuous effort to keep up and enlarge one’s linguistic
abilities. By visiting the Goethe Institut in Stockholm from time to time,
for example, Monica keeps her high-school German alive.
One-third of her TV colleagues are men. One reason that they are so
few is probably that it is not a career profession, according to Monica.
The salary, however, is not bad; it is more or less the same as that of a
secondary school teacher.
Several of Monica’s freelance colleagues are now trying their luck in
Brussels, the administrative capital of the European Community. And
surely those jobs are well paid. But they require translating a lot of
tedious administrative texts. “Is it worth it?” she asks herself. And the
answer seems to be no. But she has got nothing against trying new
fields. Seven years ago an editor asked her if she would like to translate
a novel from English, and she felt both flattered and humble before such
a task. But it went well. And since then she has translated three French
novels and an Italian one. In addition to her TV job.

Monty Python her favorite

At Swedish Television, subtitling was computerized relatively recently,

some six or seven years ago. Earlier the translator herself was present at
the time of the transmission of the program, sitting there pushing a
button every time a new title was due. “Now the whole of Sweden is
watching what my thumb is doing,” Monica used to think. And among
colleagues you could hear comments like: “What nice button-pushing you
did yesterday!”
Nowadays the picture part and the subtitle diskette are each run from
their own machine as the programs are transmitted. Both are provided
with a time code. It is the translator who is in charge of the coding, so
that the subtitle is shown at the right moment.
Monty Python is the absolute favorite among all the translations that
Monica has done. She mentions “Life of Brian” for the cinema and
“Fawlty Towers” for TV. Monty Python was “the pinnacle of my career,
the funniest thing I ever translated.” I must inform John Cleese of that,
she thought, and wrote him a fan letter. In the well-formulated answer
was an invitation to come and visit them when she came to London. So
Monica can boast of having been invited to dinner with John Cleese and
his wife in their home. And yes, he was exactly as nice and witty as you
would expect.

© Copyright Translation Journal and the Author 1998

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