Tuija Kuusela: Trying to get along with the Swedish language

Bonnier Fakta has existed for one year. The amount editional staff is about 25 people, and they release about 65 new titles every year. Fakta is the result of a reorganization and merging of the lists of the illustrated non-fiction titles of the three publishing companies that belongs to Bonnierförlagen: Albert Bonniers Förlag, Forum and Wahlström & Widstrand. Within Bonnier Fakta contains of four sub-units: Bonnier Existens (life psychology and human living skills), Reseförlaget (travelling), Fitnessförlaget (fitness and healthy life) and Bonnier Impact (inexpensive, current non-fiction).

In all Bonnierförlagen's units, the graphic design is realized mainly by freelance work force. Usually there's only one in-house designer per department except in the children's and juveniles' department (Bonnier Carlsen) which has four. My boss Nina, the chief designer, is controlling and leading the freelance work, both in Bonnier Fakta and Albert Bonniers Förlag. I'm quite surprised of the lack of design personnel - no wonder that Nina is satisfied with the GROW program that gives them extra capacity. Of course there's also a big production department which takes care of the technical business thus facilitating and decreasing the designers' work.

The most challenging thing here is the language. I have decided to try to get along with Swedish. My own speaking is still quite poor, but the real problem is to interpret the pronounciation of the locals. "Finlandsvenskan" (Swedish spoken in Finland) is quite easy to understand, but "rikssvenskan" (Swedish spoken in Sweden) is sometimes nearly hopeless. Usually, if I'm lucky, I understand the subject of the conversation. My saving angel with the language has been my boss, Nina. She is a Finn by origin and it's so reliefing to be able to discuss professional subjects in my own language. But I won't give up with the Swedish. The most common sentence I hear when going around the city is: "Vad sa du?" (What did you say?) So, my conclusion is that the Swedes really do speak so unclearly that they even themselves have difficulties to understand each others' utterances!