Mark Jackson

Many Finns possess excellent spoken English, claims the company based in offices above the nightclub Onnela, but when they put out English-language material insignificant mistakes becoming 'glaring errors.'

Founded three years ago by an Australian entrepreneur and her Finnish business partner, Opal Blue aims to solve this with a quick and efficient service which will translate 'Finnglish' into perfect English. The company specialises in business development and in particular helping Finnish Information and Communication Technology companies to market themselves and so internationalise. And a really important part of successful international marketing is having perfect English.

Cultural Mistakes

'Many Finnish businessmen speak English really very well,' insists company partner Anastasia Haysom-Varpenius, 'but they're not so confident writing English. Marketing is really important and not being sensitive to spelling, grammar and even cultural issues can make a big difference to how effective a company's marketing is.'

Asked for an example of a 'cultural mistake,' Anastasia, an Australian who has lived in Finland for almost ten years, recalled a case of a Finnish company referring to Ireland as being 'part of the UK.' In fact it stopped being part of the UK in 1922 leaving only Northern Ireland under British rule, something which can arouse strong emotions in Ireland. 'There's such a potential for misunderstandings when non-native speakers are writing English,' continues Anastasia.

A Real Need

In light of the need for the outstanding English in Finnish press-releases, Anastasia's company has taken on Dr Mark Jackson to work full-time on translating business and technology Finnglish into English. 'More and more companies are putting out information in English on their websites,' explains Jackson, originally from Goole in Yorkshire. 'And so there's a real need for the work.'

'Whenever companies put out a press release or English information on their website,' interjects Anastasia, 'it goes through Mark and it's sent back to them in perfect English.' Anything that is sent to the company - whether it's marketing material, press releases, presentations or scientific theses - is examined in depth not just by Mark but by a native Finnish speaker as well to make absolutely sure that the translation is accurate.

Laser Power

Mark's background is not quite what you would expect of a professional Finnglish translator. The twenty-nine year-old moved to Oulu two years ago because his partner got a job in an Oulu daycare centre. At the time, he was finishing his doctorate in Physics.

'It was about lasers,' enthuses Mark. When he first came to the city, Mark worked at Oulu University setting-up the 'Raman spectroscopy' laser equipment he had developed as part of his research and also doing some proofreading.

Jackson has published such articles as 'Vibrational properties of diltue nitrides under hydrostatic pressures' in the journal Physica Status Solidi. And he is sure that this helped him in his current position for Opal Blue. Jackson's scientific training - as well as his completion of a recent Finnish language course - means that he's adept at translating highly technical pieces of Finnglish into English. 'His training in technology means that he knows exactly what they're trying to say!' laughs Anastasia.

Finnglish

Anastasia got to know Mark, gave him a few tests to make sure that his English language skills were superb and then hired him. 'We were actively looking for someone for his position,' she says. 'We get a lot of specification documents and they're just not expressed in the right words. So they go to Mark and he makes sure everything's correct.'

Both Mark and Anastasia claim that they've had to learn what they call 'Finnglish' (Finnish English) over the years that they've worked in Oulu. Indeed, Mark is convinced that he could translate a document into Finnglish if he was ever asked to do so. Compared to native English, Mark and Anastasia claim, Finnglish is far more direct, involves far fewer words, tends to omit adjectives and adverbs and leads to them forgetting many of the more colloquial words in English. This also makes Mark useful, according to Anastasia.

'Mark goes back to England quite often. I don't go back to Australia quite as often, so I find myself really forgetting basic English words!' she laughs.

http://www.opalblue.fi/  

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