English is full of abbreviations that make texts easier to write. There are acronyms that are pronounced as words (UNICEF) and initialisms where every letter is pronounced individually (ECB). For simplicity, I will call them both “acronyms” here, though.
Acronyms are used in many different subject areas, e.g. medicine (CT/CTA, MRI), technology (VR, AR, USB, HDMI), translation (CAT tool, TM, MT), social (LOL, BRB, TBH), authorities (NATO, WHO, UN, EU, ECB), business (EOB/EOD, CEO, CFO, B2B, R&D).
Not translated
Of course we have acronyms in Swedish, but the usage differs a little from English. In fact, many English acronyms are never translated into Swedish, but instead kept in the original language.
In the list above, there are no Swedish acronyms for CT/CTA, MRI, VR, AR, USB, HDMI, CAT, TM, MT, LOL, BRB, TBH, NATO, WHO, EOB/EOD, CFO, B2B. Instead, we use the English acronyms, often together with an initial explanation, if they’re not well known.
You might think that VR (Virtual Reality – virtuell verklighet) should be VV in Swedish, but we don’t like creating new acronyms. Same goes for AR (Augmented Reality – förhöjd verklighet) which should be FV.
CAT means Computer-Assisted Translation (“datorstödd översättning”), TM is Translation Memory (“översättningsminne”) and MT is Machine Translation (“maskinöversättning”). But none of these end up being DÖ, ÖM or MÖ, perhaps because these words already mean something else in Swedish (“die”, “sore” and “maiden”, respectively).
The more day-to-day acronyms we love to copy straight from English, maybe because it’s still kind of cool to use them. That is, LOL (Laughing Out Loud), BRB (Be Right Back), TBH (To Be Honest), and many others, of course.
Interestingly, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) does have a Swedish acronym, DSF (Dataskyddsförordningen), but it was GDPR that caught on in Sweden and hardly anyone knows what DSF is.
Many can’t be used
Many English acronyms can’t be kept in Swedish and instead have to be translated with complete words, such as EC which is often used for the European commission, or MP which means Member of Parliament. If these acronyms are being used often in a text and refer to long phrases, then in the end, the translation will be a very long one, compared to the source text.
To avoid long phrases in Swedish, you can use only one word from a phrase, instead of making it an acronym. In Swedish, the European Commission (Europeiska kommissionen) can simply be ”kommissionen” (the commission), the member of parliament (parlamentsledamoten) kan bli ”ledamoten” (the member) and the European Central Bank (Europeiska centralbanken) can be called ”banken” (the bank), if it’s obvious from context which bank it refers to.
This is shorter, but not quite as short as the English acronyms. So if you want to use an English acronym instead, you should first write the word or phrase in Swedish, followed by the acronym and the English expression. For example:
Inom översättningsbranschen används ibland maskinöversättning (MT – Machine Translation). När MT används ber man oftast översättarna ändra så lite som möjligt i texten, eftersom fokus ligger på begriplighet och inte på läskvalitet.
Some are translated after all
We do have an acronym for CEO, which is ”vd” in Swedish (the recommendation is to write it with small letters, since it is an established acronym that is used as a regular word) and we do have FoU (forskning och utveckling) for R&D (Research and Development), but these translations are rare.
When it comes to authorities and business, it’s a bit mixed. WHO and NATO are not translated, for example. However, FN is the Swedish acronym for the UN and EES (Europeiska ekonomiska samarbetsområdet) is Swedish for EEA (European Economic Area). EU happens to coincide with the English acronym, same thing with for example the ECB (European Central Bank – Europeiska centralbanken).
Temporary acronyms
Something most people don’t know or don’t think about is that English texts often contain acronyms that are invented ad hoc and are valid for one text only. This is often done without even explaining what the acronym means. It’s something that hardly ever shows up in Swedish and that might confuse a Swedish reader.
Let’s say that I’m writing an article about teenage alcohol consumption. I can then, further down in the text, without explanation use the acronym TAC. My impression is that an English speaking reader is used to this and understands that TAC refers to the phrase mentioned higher up in the text. In Swedish, you can’t suddenly throw in ABT (for ”alkoholkonsumtion bland tonåringar”) in the same way, but the phrase can be shortened, as we can see here:
Teenage alcohol consumption was on the rise some 20 years ago and was a worrying trend that put people’s health at risk. The young generation today, however, is more interested in staying fit and healthy. Some might say that it’s turned into an obsession and that health related stress is more serious than TAC ever was.
Alkoholkonsumtionen bland tonåringar var på uppgång för ungefär 20 år sedan och var en oroande trend som riskerade människors hälsa. Den unga generationen idag är dock mer intresserad av att hålla sig frisk och i form. Vissa kan säga att det blivit till en besatthet och att hälsorelaterade stress är allvarligare än alkoholkonsumtionen någonsin var.
Summary
We’ve seen that English likes to use a lot of acronyms and that we often copy them straight into Swedish. Some acronyms we do translate, but the vast majority of them are either kept in English or translated with a shorter phrase rather than an acronym.
The rule for Swedish is as follows: use as few acronyms as possible and explain them if they aren’t already established. Don’t create any new acronyms.