This guide adapts rules and examples from Microsoft’s Localization Style Guide for Swedish (originally written for software/UI localization). The underlying linguistic rules apply universally — to legal contracts, medical documents, marketing copy, and any Swedish translation work. Restructured and reformatted as a general Swedish translator reference by ChatsControl.

Swedish Translation Style Guide — Voice, Word Choice & Common Pitfalls (Legal, Medical, Marketing, IT)¶

TL;DR¶

• Swedish readers respond to facts, not rhetoric — keep sentences short, drop English superlatives (best/fastest), and rewrite convoluted US marketing structures into direct Swedish; superlatives like bäst and snabbast are usually illegal in Swedish marketing unless backed by an independent test.
• Address users with informal du (lowercase) across software, marketing, medical and consumer legal content — Swedish dropped the formal ni decades ago and du is now the universal default.
• Replace formal verbosity with everyday words: erhålla → få; såväl … som → också, både … och; ha möjlighet → kan; X gör det möjligt att → Med X kan du; emellertid/dock → men; tillhandahålla → ge, förse med; i enlighet med → enligt.
• Avoid kommer att for future — use the present tense instead (Tryck på knappen, så skickas meddelandet); avoid double negatives (vare sig… eller, not inte… inte); use comma as decimal separator, period only for product version numbers (2,5 GB but Server 2.0).
• Use the feminine form of nouns and adjectives as the default neutral form (den anställda, not den anställde) — Swedish is unusual in that the feminine, not masculine, is the inclusive default; use hen as singular gender-neutral pronoun where han eller hon would be clumsy.

Register and tone for Swedish translation¶

Register is the level of formality, warmth, and conversational ease the target text projects. Modern Swedish readers across consumer-facing spheres expect a register that is clear, friendly, concise, and resembles everyday conversation — not the formal, technical, jargon-laden language often used in commercial and bureaucratic source material. Swedish marketing in particular has been allergic to puffery for decades, and convoluted US sentence structures land flat on a Swedish audience.

Three principles define the modern Swedish register for consumer-facing content:

• Warm and relaxed. Natural, less formal, grounded in honest conversation. The product talking to the user, not an institution issuing a directive.
• Crisp and clear. Written for scanning first, reading second. Short sentences, short expressions, simplicity by default.
• Ready to help. Anticipates what the reader needs and provides the right information at the right moment.

Why this matters: Convoluted US marketing structures and rhetorical jargon are wildly excessive for the Swedish market. A Swedish audience is impressed by facts, not rhetoric. We use short sentences and short expressions. In marketing copy this means stripping superlatives and restructuring into factual claims (superlatives are legally restricted — see below). In patient-facing medical materials it means plain Swedish over Latinate vocabulary where the audience is non-specialist. In software UI it means short, scannable labels and instructions. In consumer-facing legal documents (terms of service, privacy notices) it means plain Swedish that matches how people actually speak — Swedish authorities increasingly demand it.

Superlatives — a legal issue in Swedish marketing¶

Superlatives such as bäst (best), snabbast (fastest), mest tillförlitlig (most reliable), and similar absolute claims are normally illegal in Swedish marketing texts. Two narrow exceptions:

1. An independent body has conducted an impartial test that is clearly referenced in the text.
2. The claim is obviously a matter of taste (årets bästa actionfilm — “the best action movie of the year” — is allowed because everyone reads it as opinion).

Why this matters: This is not a stylistic preference. It is consumer-protection law enforced by the Marknadsdomstolen (Market Court) and the Konsumentverket (Consumer Agency). Marketing translators must rewrite English superlative claims into factual Swedish or risk regulatory action against the client. Software product pages, app store descriptions, landing pages translated literally from English become legal exposure — a flagged risk that should accompany any marketing translation delivery to a Swedish-market client.

Audience targeting: technical vs. consumer vocabulary¶

Use technical terms for technical audiences; for consumers use common words. The same source text requires different vocabulary depending on who reads the translation. A clinical drug monograph for prescribers uses precise pharmacological terminology; the patient leaflet for the same drug uses everyday Swedish. A software API reference uses developer jargon; the end-user help article uses plain Swedish.

This applies in every sphere. Legal translation for corporate counsel uses Latinisms and procedural shorthand; consumer-facing versions need plain-Swedish framing. Medical translation for clinicians keeps Greek/Latin nomenclature; for patients it switches to common terms. IT translation uses developer jargon in engineer-facing docs, natural Swedish in end-user help.

Flexibility: when to translate literally vs. when to rewrite¶

Flexibility is the translator’s discretion to depart from literal source structure when the literal rendering produces unnatural Swedish. The rule: understand the whole intention of the sentence, paragraph, or page, then rewrite as if composing it yourself for a Swedish reader. Sometimes you need to remove unnecessary content. Swedish translators have an explicit licence to choose words that aren’t standard translations if that’s the best way to stay true to the intent of the source.

Repetition¶

It’s common in English to repeat certain words in a sentence. In Swedish, don’t repeat a word more than is necessary for the meaning.

Double negatives¶

Double negatives are often used in English in a way that isn’t considered proper style, or even correct grammar, in Swedish.

Why this matters: Source-faithful translation produces translatorese — text that reads as translated. Required in sworn legal translation and certified document translation (birth certificates, court rulings, disputed contracts) where literal accuracy is mandated. Harmful in marketing translation (lost conversion and legal risk from superlatives), patient-facing healthcare materials (lost clarity), and software UX (lost engagement). Knowing where the boundary sits is core translator judgment.

Word choice: approved terminology and conversational vocabulary¶

Approved terminology is the project-specific bank of fixed translations for key terms, product names, technical concepts, and recurring phrases. Consistency within the bank matters more than the individual choice. Use approved terminology from project language resources for key terms, technical terms, and product names.

Short, everyday words are preferred over long formal ones wherever both exist and the audience is non-specialist. Shorter words are friendlier, save screen space, and parse faster.

Why this matters: Terminology consistency is non-negotiable in legal translation (a defined term in a contract must render identically across all 200 pages — variant renderings create ambiguity opposing counsel will exploit), medical translation (drug names, dosage units, anatomical terms must be invariant — a synonym swap can produce a dispensing error), and IT/software translation (UI labels, menu items, error codes must match help documentation word-for-word).

Words and phrases to avoid in Swedish¶

Why this matters: These forms appear in legal templates and government forms out of institutional habit but feel stiff and bureaucratic in modern consumer products, patient-facing medical materials, brand-led marketing, and user-friendly software. The replacement column reads as Swedish people actually speak — which is the test for register in any consumer-facing context. Verbose Latinate variants like erhålla, tillhandahålla, and i enlighet med are the highest-leverage substitutions a translator can make.

Word-for-word translation: why direct mapping fails¶

To achieve a fluent translation, avoid word-for-word translation. If text is translated literally without an overall understanding of the paragraph or page, the tone will sound stiff and unnatural and the result may even be ridiculous. Check the source text in the live pages so that you don’t just translate a list of strings without context. The text may be split into different sentences if that helps to simplify the translation. Sometimes you can omit descriptors to make the text snappier.

Why this matters: Word-to-word translation is the dominant failure mode of inexperienced translators and unedited machine output. In legal contracts it produces clauses that translate every term but obscure who owes what. In medical instructions it separates action from actor in ways that confuse patients. In marketing copy it produces headlines that read as foreign — technically Swedish but emotionally flat. In software UI it produces labels users hesitate over.

Sample voice usage¶

Focusing on the user action¶

Explanatory text and providing support¶

Promoting a feature¶

Providing how-to guidelines¶

Inclusive language¶

Use plain language. Be mindful of politically disputed cities and countries. Represent diverse perspectives. Don’t generalize or stereotype. Don’t use profane or derogatory terms. Don’t use slang that could be considered cultural appropriation. Don’t use terms that may carry unconscious racial bias or terms associated with military actions, politics, or controversial historical events.

Avoid gender bias¶

Use gender-neutral alternatives for common terms. Avoid compound words containing man or men, or similar constructions, when possible. Certain words containing the masculine form -man or the feminine form -ska such as brandman or sjuksköterska are well established in Swedish and can denote all genders. When it’s possible to choose a more gender-neutral form, that should be the preferred option.

Avoid the usage of the adjectival form -e to distinguish gender. Instead, use the gender-neutral form -a. If it’s necessary to distinguish gender, a pre-modifier such as “female” or “male” can be added.

When presenting generalization, use plural noun forms (for example, personer, individer, studenter).

Don’t use gendered pronouns (hon, han, henne, honom) in generic references. Instead:

• Rewrite to use the second person (du).
• Rewrite the sentence to have a plural noun and pronoun.
• Use the definite form instead of a pronoun (dokumentet instead of hans dokument).
• Refer to a person’s role (läsare, anställd, kund, klient).
• Use person or individ.
• Use the gender-neutral pronoun hen — added to the Swedish Academy Dictionary, a practical choice for several contexts, a convenient way to avoid the gender-exclusive han eller hon, and a suitable equivalent for the English singular they / their. Some caution: hen may still not be seen as completely neutral in all contexts.

When writing about a real person, use the pronouns that person prefers. It’s OK to use gendered pronouns (han, hon, honom, henne) when writing about real people who use those pronouns themselves.

Gender-neutral language should be used in new content going forward, but it’s acceptable not to update all existing or legacy material.

Accessibility¶

Focus on people, not disabilities. Don’t use words that imply pity, such as drabbad av or lider av. The preferred option is not to mention a disability unless it’s relevant.

Use generic verbs that apply to all input methods and devices.

Keep paragraphs short and sentence structure simple — aim for one verb per sentence. Read the text aloud and imagine it spoken by a screen reader. Spell out words like och, plus, and om. Screen readers can misread text that uses special characters like the ampersand (&), plus sign (+), and tilde (~).

Language-specific standards¶

Abbreviations¶

Avoid abbreviations in UI where possible (file a “Not designed for localization” bug instead). When abbreviations are needed:

Don’t use the abbreviation etc. Instead, use o.s.v.

Acronyms¶

In Swedish, we don’t normally localize computer-related acronyms. In general, acronyms aren’t as common in Swedish as in English. Unlocalized acronyms should be explained the first time they appear.

Adjectives¶

Don’t misinterpret nouns for adjectives. Executable usually means körbar fil, not körbar. Downloadable is translated as nedladdningsbar fil, not necessarily only nedladdningsbar. Check the context.

Conjugate each adjective (perfect participle) properly, depending on the noun it relates to. The noun is often implied (for example, in a separate, previous string).

Possessives like his, its, whose are common in English. Swedish, also a Germanic language, is not unlike English in that regard. However, the meaning is often clearer if the noun is used instead of a pronoun. And be careful — sometimes in the source text the pronoun doesn’t agree with the antecedent (syftningsfel).

Articles¶

Use articles (den, det, de) consistently. Articles can often be omitted because the meaning is clear to the user.

Unlocalized product/feature names are used without definite or indefinite articles, like in English: Microsoft Word, not the Microsoft Word.

Translated feature names are normally translated in the definite form: Expression Builder → Uttrycksverktyget.

For English loan words, choose the article based on (1) motivation — does the English word have formally motivated features that allow integration into the Swedish noun class system (en policy, flera policyer, de där policyerna)? (2) analogy — is there an equivalent Swedish term whose article could be used? (3) frequency — what article is used most often in technical documentation?

Capitalization¶

In Swedish, everything except names and the first word in a sentence is lowercase. Don’t follow the capitalization in the source text.

• Weekdays and months don’t count as names. They’re capitalized only as the first word in a sentence or where the design context requires it (a calendar).
• If a proper name starts with a lowercase letter (Dutch van der Waal, French de Broglie) and starts a sentence, the name is not capitalized.
• All-capital letters are never used in Swedish.

Lowercase is sometimes used for the names of commands, menus, dialog boxes, and similar elements of software UI. This can be a problem for Swedish when localizing user assistance because Swedish doesn’t use quotation marks for software references. In these cases, use uppercase when referring to software references, as a way to highlight the names.

Compounds¶

Compounds should be understandable and clear. Avoid overly long or complex compounds. Most Swedish speakers find compounds of more than four or five elements difficult to interpret. Such compounds can be avoided by rephrasing: överljudsflygplansmotor → motor för överljudsflygplan.

Just separating words that should be compounds is a serious error. överljud flygplans motor means nothing. Fel sökning means “the wrong search” — felsökning means “diagnostics.”

English technical texts often contain long strings of nouns. In Swedish, prepositions must be used to clarify how the elements relate to one another.

A compound with a name as its first part begins with a capital letter: Windows-program, Falutrakten.

Conjunctions¶

Writing in modern Swedish style allows starting a sentence with a conjunction to convey an informal tone, but be careful not to overuse this — it will be regarded as colloquial.

Gender¶

Pay attention to gender inflection when translating adjectives. In software, it’s often impossible to determine what noun an adjective refers to. In these cases, use the neuter form (nytt, allmänt). Never use a double form (Ny/nytt, Ny(tt)).

In running text, if an adjective refers to nouns of different genders, write the adjective out using the proper form for each noun:

Never use the masculine form of a noun or an adjective. Swedish is different from other languages — the feminine form takes precedence. Using the masculine form means everyone the text refers to is male. Especially important when addressing the reader.

Genitive¶

Don’t use the English apostrophe (‘) for Swedish genitive forms.

Sometimes there are objections to attaching a genitive -s to (trademarked) product names because it could be interpreted as a modification of the name. Rephrase: Microsoft’s → som tillhör Microsoft.

In longer constructions, especially titles, the genitive -s is added to the first word, which looks odd to modern readers — rephrase: The Queen of England’s castle → Drottningens av England slott (formally correct) → Den engelska drottningens slott (rephrased).

Localizing colloquialism, idioms, and metaphors¶

The modern register allows culture-centric colloquialisms, idioms, and metaphors. Options:

• Don’t replace the source colloquialism with a Swedish one that means the same thing unless the Swedish version is a perfect and natural fit for that context.
• Translate the intended meaning (not literally) when the colloquialism’s meaning is integral to the text.
• If the colloquialism can be omitted without affecting meaning, omit it.

Modifiers¶

English text often uses passive construction with modifiers. In Swedish, you sometimes need to rewrite phrases like this using relative clauses, or the result sounds excessively formal.

Nouns¶

Some nouns have masculine forms, but always use the feminine form unless the context makes clear the reference is only to males.

When the source text uses singular+(s) for plural in parenthesis, Swedish always uses only the plural. In rare cases use both, written out in full:

Avoid the construction efterställd bestämning. Acceptable in speech where emphasis adds clarity, but unclear or even incorrect in writing.

Swedish plurals have no easily distinguishable pattern. Cases must be dealt with individually: ärta/ärtor, stol/stolar, bord/bord, flygel/flyglar, mus/möss, snöre/snören, rätt/rätter.

Numbers¶

There’s no set rule for writing numerals, but common practice is to spell out numbers between zero and twelve.

Prepositions¶

Be careful to use prepositions correctly. Many translators, influenced by English source, omit them or change the word order. Together with the relative pronoun som, prepositions can start or end a sentence.

Pronouns¶

Convey natural Swedish through first- and second-person pronouns. Avoid impersonal constructions and passive voice. Avoid excessive use of first- and second-person possessives (min, mitt, mina, din, ditt, dina) — use only when needed to clarify or distinguish (your files vs. somebody else’s). Avoid excessive use of we (vi) — Swedish users are much less comfortable than US users with the idea that their data might be monitored.

Punctuation¶

Comma. Use a comma between principal clauses unless they’re very short (less than four words). Imperative clauses, questions, and exclamations are principal clauses. Use a comma before and after an inserted clause or phrase. Use a comma after a long subordinate clause only if it facilitates reading — short subordinate clauses don’t need a comma even if the English source has one. Use a comma to separate items in a series of more than two phrases. The serial/Oxford comma is never used in Swedish and must be deleted from the translation. The comma is always the decimal character in Swedish (English uses a period). Exception: product version numbers use a period (Server 2.0).

Colon. Use in ordinals (22:a, 34:e, 77:e). Use before examples and instructions. If the text following the colon starts a new line or is a complete sentence, capitalize the first word. The colon is used for plural, definite, and genitive forms of acronyms: URL:en, IBM:s.

Hyphen. Used to divide words between syllables, link parts of compounds, and connect parts of inverted/imperative verbs. Specific uses:

• For clarity: icke-rökare.
• When the first part is a product/brand name: Microsoft-produkter, Word-dokument, Skype-kredit, Skype-namn, Skype Pro-användare.
• When the first part is an acronym: CAD-system.
• When one of the parts is a foreign word: standard-gateway.
• When the first part is a number: 25-procentig.
• In references to menus: Arkiv-menyn, Start-menyn, Hjälp-menyn.
• In coordinated constructions where one part of a compound noun is left out: maskin- och programvara.
• Hard hyphen (Ctrl+Shift+Hyphen) to avoid line breaks (2-årig, 2011-12-31).

If unsure, consult SAOL — if the word is listed it’s a Swedish word, no hyphen needed (live in liveljud, copyright in copyrighttext).

En dash. Used as minus sign with spaces. In Swedish, used instead of parentheses or commas around inserted clauses or phrases (ANSI 0150, space before and after). English uses the en dash more often, so use it sparingly in Swedish. In number ranges: page 114–120 → sid 114–120 (no spaces).

Em dash. Swedish doesn’t use the em dash.

Ellipsis. Use sparingly. Add a space between text and ellipsis (så här …). In UI, don’t insert this space (avoids line-break and truncation issues). The ellipsis in menu options, buttons, and similar UI is usually removed in Swedish documentation that refers to those elements: Click Save… → Klicka på Spara.

Period. Used in Swedish abbreviations (t.ex., m.m.). Used in product version numbers (Server 2.0). Never used in UI options and check boxes.

Quotation marks. Swedish uses ” ” or ” ”. Don’t use the US 66-99 style (” “). Don’t use straight quotes (“) to denote inches — write tum. Remove English quotation marks around software references in the source — highlight with uppercase instead.

Parentheses. No space between the parentheses and text inside them, in both English and Swedish.

Sentence fragments¶

Sentence fragments and short sentences are fine in modern Swedish style. Don’t use sentence fragments when the user is prompted for a decision.

Symbols and nonbreaking spaces¶

Swedish normally doesn’t use symbols other than %. The # and & symbols common in US English should be treated as the words “number” and “and.” Logical and mathematical operators are used as in English.

Use nonbreaking spaces (Ctrl+Shift+spacebar) to avoid line breaks in amounts, phone numbers, and between a measurement and its unit: 2.5GB → 2,5 GB. Note: nonbreaking spaces sometimes cause problems generating final documents — don’t use in online help and documentation live content.

Ampersand (&). Always translate & as “and” when in running text. Don’t keep & in the target unless it’s part of a tag, placeholder, shortcut, or other code.

Syntax¶

Consistent syntax helps set users’ expectations. Sentence style should be short, simple, and complete. Avoid compound sentences, ambiguous structure, and nonstandard word order. Adapt syntax to Swedish standards — don’t copy US English syntax when it isn’t natural.

Verbs¶

The source uses simple verb tenses for clarity. The easiest tense to understand is the simple present. Avoid the future tense unless describing something that really will happen in the future and the simple present isn’t accurate.

In Swedish translations, avoid kommer att — use the present tense instead.

Use the simple past tense for events that have already happened. Use the perfect tense for completed actions.

Localization considerations¶

Adapt translated text to local language, customs, and standards. Swedish products should have the look and feel of having been originally written in Swedish. Adapt examples to local circumstances — change Washington to Stockholm; Bill to Erik; baseball to bandy; Thanksgiving to St. Lucia; dollar amounts to SEK (don’t recalculate at an exchange rate — just use SEK).

Names and concepts should be neutral and common. Avoid humor — very few things are universally funny, and someone will be offended. Avoid controversial topics: death, famine, social classes, poverty, politics, ideologies, religion, stereotypes, current affairs.

European law on personal data is much more restrictive than US law. Civic registration numbers (personnummer) are perceived as negative by many users — never use them in examples. Use customer numbers and account numbers instead. Soft data — opinions, evaluations, religion, political affiliation, psychological profile, hobbies, favorite candy, city of birth — requires special dispensation from Datainspektionen and should never appear in examples.

Titles¶

For English topic titles beginning with “How to…” or phrases such as “Working with…” or “Using…”, use the infinitive form of verbs without the infinitive marker att:

For nouns in documentation headings, use the same form (singular or plural) as the source:

To introduce user instructions, on the lowest heading level, use the form “Så här …”: Saving a file → Så här sparar du en fil.

Instructions and references¶

Use the imperative for user instructions. When possible, place the imperative up front.

“To” clauses. A commonly used US construction is a clause starting with To… followed by an imperative. A different structure is recommended in Swedish. Don’t automatically translate to with för att.

Conditional subordinate clauses are easier to understand when they start with om instead of a verb, and when the verb in the principal clause is in the present tense.

Exception: if an action is required rather than optional, för att usually works better.

Error messages¶

Apply natural-sounding, empathetic, non-robotic style to error messages. Use complete sentences. Avoid personification of the computer, system, or application.

Standard phrases:

Placeholders. %d, %ld, %u, %lu mean numbers; %c means letter; %s means string. Pay attention to inflection so the translated sentence is grammatically correct after substitution. This may require creative solutions because gender/number of the replacement word may be unknown.

Keys and shortcuts¶

Arrow keys: uppåtpil, nedåtpil, högerpil, vänsterpil, collectively piltangenterna, lowercase.

Most shortcut keys stay the same in Swedish — only three are localized (Italic Ctrl+I → Ctrl+K, Bold Ctrl+B → Ctrl+F, Edit Find Ctrl+F → Ctrl+B; plus Skift in place of Shift). Common Windows shortcut translations: Alt+Tab → Alt+Tabb; Alt+Spacebar → Alt+Blanksteg; Alt+Enter → Alt+Retur; Ctrl+Backspace → Ctrl+Backsteg; Ctrl+Shift+Esc → Ctrl+Skift+Esc.

Copilot predefined prompts¶

When localizing AI assistant predefined prompts:

• Be clear and specific. English prompts are typically questions or requests starting with an action verb. Make the target prompts natural questions or requests.
• Keep it conversational. Use simple, natural language. Avoid a machine-like tone. Use an informal tone and form of address.
• Be polite and professional. Use kind, respectful language.
• Use quotation marks. This helps the AI know what to write, modify, or replace.
• Pay attention to punctuation, grammar, and capitalization.
• Pay attention to placement of entity tokens (placeholders for files, contacts, meetings). Tokens themselves are not localizable, but their position must make sense in target syntax. Exception: when the prompt is display text/example, the entity token text should be translated — read the Dev comment carefully.
• Be consistent across similar prompts.

Voice video considerations¶

For voice-over: English terms and product names left unlocalized should be pronounced as English words. If Swedish has an established pronunciation for a term (server), use it. Pronunciation can be adapted to Swedish phonetics if the original sounds awkward.

• W is always pronounced like V.
• Acronyms like RADIUS, RAS, ISA, LAN, WAN, MAPI, POP, URL are pronounced as real words adapted to Swedish.
• Letter-by-letter acronyms: ICMP, IP, TCP/IP, XML, HTML, OWA, SQL.
• URLs: drop http://, pronounce www as “vvv”, the dot can be omitted or read as punkt. http://www.microsoft.com → “Ve-ve-ve punkt majkrosåft punkt kåm”.
• En dashes pronounced as a short pause (like a comma).
• Start each screen with a new sentence where possible; otherwise use a comma to ease comprehension.

Reference materials: authoritative Swedish dictionaries¶

Standard authorities for Swedish orthography, grammar, and terminology:

1. Svenska Akademiens ordlista över svenska språket (Norstedts), latest edition. The standard Swedish word list. Available online at svenska.se.
2. Svenska skrivregler (Språkrådet), latest edition. The standard Swedish writing rules — punctuation, spelling, capitalization, hyphenation. Authoritative.
3. Svenskt språkbruk (Språkrådet/Norstedts). Usage dictionary for collocations, prepositions, idioms.
4. Svensk ordbok utgiven av Svenska Akademien. The most comprehensive contemporary explanatory dictionary. Available online at svenska.se.
5. IDG/Computer Sweden at cstjanster.idg.se/sprakwebben/ord.asp. Glossary with explanations of computer terms in Swedish.
6. Rikstermbanken at www.rikstermbanken.se. Swedish terminology collection across domains.
7. Institutet för språk och folkminnen at frageladan.isof.se/fragasr.py. General guidance on correct Swedish writing.

FAQ¶

How should I address users in Swedish translation?¶

Use du (informal, lowercase) universally — Swedish is unusual among European languages in having effectively abandoned the formal ni in the late 20th century. Du is correct for software UI, marketing copy, medical patient leaflets, consumer-facing legal documents, business correspondence, and government communication. Capital Ni survives only in narrow ceremonial or older legal contexts and sounds stiff in everything else.

What’s the Swedish rule about superlatives in marketing?¶

Superlatives like “best”, “fastest”, “most reliable” translated as bäst, snabbast, mest tillförlitlig are normally illegal in Swedish marketing material. Exceptions: (1) if an independent body has conducted an impartial test that is clearly referenced in the text, or (2) if the claim is obviously a matter of taste (“årets bästa actionfilm” is allowed). This means marketing translators must restructure superlative-heavy English source into factual Swedish — a hard departure from literal translation.

Which formal Swedish words should I replace?¶

erhålla → få; såväl … som → också, både … och; ha möjlighet → kan; X gör det möjligt att → Med X kan du; dock, emellertid → men; föregående → förra (not for UI buttons); såsom, exempelvis → till exempel, som; e-postmeddelande → mejl in web/marketing (keep e-post/e-postmeddelande in UI and UA); tillhandahålla → ge, förse med; i enlighet med → enligt, utifrån, baserat på; Mer information om hur du gör detta finns på → Mer info finns på (avoid Få reda på, Ta reda på).

How does Swedish handle gender-neutral language?¶

Use gender-neutral alternatives where they exist (talesperson not talesman, skådespelare not skådespelerska, lärare not lärarinna). Use the -a adjective ending rather than -e to distinguish gender (den nya chefen, den anställda). For singular generic references, prefer the second person du, plural forms, role nouns (läsare, anställd, kund), or the neutral pronoun hen which is now in the Swedish Academy Dictionary. Never use the masculine form as a default — in Swedish the feminine is the inclusive form, opposite to most other European languages.

What’s the rule on future tense and verbal style in Swedish translation?¶

Avoid kommer att for future — use the simple present tense instead (Om du trycker på knappen skickas meddelandet, not Om du trycker på knappen kommer meddelandet att skickas). Use perfect tense for completed actions (Om du har gjort ändringar… not Om du gjorde ändringar…). Avoid personification of the computer in error messages — Det går inte att… not Jag kan inte… Use complete sentences in error messages; avoid the impersonal Cannot… construction by switching to Det går inte att…

What are the Swedish punctuation rules translators most often get wrong?¶

Comma is the decimal separator, never a period (2,5 GB, not 2.5 GB); periods are reserved for product version numbers (Server 2.0). No Oxford/serial comma — delete the comma before och/eller in lists. Use Swedish typographical quotation marks (” ” or ” ”), not the US 66-99 style (” “). The em dash is not used in Swedish — use the en dash with spaces instead. Use colons in genitive/plural acronyms (URL:en, IBM:s). Avoid the apostrophe-s genitive for trademarked product names — rephrase (som tillhör Microsoft, not Microsoft’s).

Sources¶

• Microsoft Localization Style Guides hub
• Svenska Akademiens ordlista och Svensk ordbok (svenska.se)
• Svenska skrivregler — Språkrådet / Institutet för språk och folkminnen
• Rikstermbanken — Swedish terminology collection
• IDG/Computer Sweden glossary of IT terms