If you are someone who has periods, chances are you鈥檝e downloaded a period-tracking app, such as , to keep an eye on your symptoms throughout the month and to get an idea of when your period is due to start.

If you have children or are looking to conceive, maybe you have used or other fertility and ovulation trackers, pregnancy trackers like or a smart breast pump such as that developed by .

From apps allowing users to set up monthly tampon subscriptions to products such as period underwear 鈥� , and to name just a few 鈥� and health advice services, 鈥渇emtech鈥� is a catch-all term for products aimed towards women (and those with female anatomy).

Breaking taboos

Historically, the general public and investors alike have tended to shy away from discussing periods. Even adverts for feminine products often skirt around the very topic they are advertising for. Any talk of what actually happens during a period is avoided. These adverts will even go as far as using blue paint rather than red when demonstrating how products work.

Adverts for feminine products will often use blue paint rather than red

In the past, this has caused many of us to be ashamed of talking candidly about the symptoms we experience on a monthly basis. This in turn can lead to issues such as infertility and conditions like endometriosis to go undiagnosed.

However, the emergence of these apps in the femtech sector is changing things. We are being led to become more comfortable with our own bodies, helping us identify more easily when something is 鈥渨rong鈥�.

Not only does this empower women to better track their health, but it also proves to them that there is nothing to be ashamed of. Especially when it comes to taking care of their bodies.

Empowering female-led startups

92% of femtech startups were founded and are led by women

reported that 92% of femtech startups were founded and are led by women. This demonstrates just how valuable the perspective of women for women is in the tech world.

And even more so if we鈥檙e going to tackle some of the biggest challenges impacting us.

Compared to other sectors, this is an astounding number of female-directed companies. It helps to diversify the gender makeup of those in power in the technology industry 鈥� where decision-making power most often lies in the hands of men.

With much of this technology being developed by women for women, this is not only a win for gender equality. It also means that the people who are providing solutions are those who truly understand the health issues that women face.

Put simply, it allows the concerns that women have to be seen and addressed by someone with similar experiences.

At the forefront of telehealth

In the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, many people were sequestered in their houses, only leaving when absolutely necessary in order to help slow the spread of the virus.

During the lockdowns, this meant that many turned to subscription services to buy their period products or order medication rather than popping to the pharmacy. Not only was this invaluable during the pandemic, but it is also a useful service for those with reduced mobility who may find it hard to get to the shops regularly.

Often, disability issues are not accounted for when it comes to technology. So, it鈥檚 promising to hear that these innovations are making a positive impact in terms of telehealth. This technology may enable those with disabilities to access a similar level of care as their able-bodied counterparts.

Obviously, there is still a long way to go. But it is encouraging that certain forms of femtech have succeeded in improving the quality of life for many who have historically been marginalised by society.

The role of language in femtech

Femtech solutions should, by their nature, have universal applications. When a company plans to provide these products to new user groups across a wider range of markets, there are many aspects to consider.

Among the most important are the reasons for them to carefully vet and translate their content:

• Women have the right to access health information in a language they understand and feel comfortable with.
• In many countries, the level of education is still not the same for women as it is for men. Therefore, any products available only in a non-native language may be a barrier to women who wish to use them.
• These are personal, often private, matters that you might only discuss with your closest circle or your doctor. So that these products are more relatable and confidence-inspiring, the right tone of voice needs to be translated.
• These are important matters that concern your health. Consequently, terminology must be translated correctly so as not to be confusing or misleading.

Language service providers (LSP) have a natural affinity with femtech companies. Many LSPs are female-led and they have a great percentage of highly educated female staff who work competently with technology. Many of our linguists and project managers are fans of such tech solutions and are keen to make them accessible to a wider audience.

All in all, this is clearly just the start when it comes to the potential growth of femtech. The femtech sector has already made so much headway, with hundreds of millions of dollars invested in femtech within just the last decade. With this, it鈥檚 safe to say that there鈥檚 a lot more to come 鈥� and likely sooner rather than later.

It will certainly be interesting to see in what ways the industry continues to adapt and develop as it expands into new niches and international markets.

The post Is femtech the future? appeared first on sa国际传媒.

For many, the pandemic has brought stress to the forefront of our minds: worries of catching the coronavirus, job security, maintaining a healthy work-life balance and home schooling are just a few possible stressors. However, it is important to note that it鈥檚 not always simple to sniff out the cause of stress 鈥� and even if you manage to do so, battling those feelings can feel like an uphill struggle with no end. Especially in the translation industry, with its tight deadlines and the pressure to perform to a very high standard, relaxing and switching off can prove challenging, if not unthinkable.

Despite the fact that stress is hard to completely eliminate, there are a few tried and tested ways to help reduce it. Unlike the abundance of other articles on this subject, I won鈥檛 extoll the virtues of yoga, exercise and taking breaks 鈥� sometimes these just aren鈥檛 feasible, especially if motivation is lacking or you don鈥檛 have the time (or both).

What I would like to do though is take the opportunity of , which runs from 10鈥�16 May 2021, to outline a few methods that I and a couple of colleagues use to lessen our stress, on those days where it might all be a bit too much.

1. Cutting back the caffeine

In the translation industry, it鈥檚 common to find yourself overwhelmed by a heavy workload with a relatively small amount of time to get through it: a situation which can cause stress and anxiety to arise even in the calmest of people. Personally, I鈥檓 aware that if my morning starts off this way, I should in all likelihood limit myself to just the one morning coffee, as any more will cause my heart to race and make me feel jittery. My brain then interprets this as anxiety (as the two sensations are very similar) and tricks me into feeling more stressed than I actually am.

Obviously, it鈥檚 not always easy to reduce your intake of coffee, but limiting your caffeine intake is definitely worth a try if you are anything like me! Switching to a herbal tea could be another good option as well.

2. ? Breaking down your work into smaller chunks

If giving up coffee is not for you, I鈥檝e found that gaining a sense of control over your day can prove equally useful. My favourite (if not slightly convoluted) way to do this is by making a list of all of the things I need to do within a certain time frame, i.e. by the end of the day. I then set a timer on my phone for half an hour and try to complete as much as I possibly can before the alarm rings, after which I treat myself to a cup of tea or a snack, or I go and annoy my pet cat for a minute.

What this does for me is to provide a sense of focus. Instead of panicking and trying to remember all the tasks I need to complete along with their deadlines, the list helps to provide an overview of my work while marking tasks as 鈥渃omplete鈥� and incentivising myself with a treat provides a nice sense of satisfaction.

3. ? Getting away from your screen

Sometimes, it鈥檚 hard to see the bigger picture, especially on busy days when you feel like there is no room to breathe, let alone think. Deadlines, issues with technology and tricky technical texts can all contribute to this feeling of futility, making it feel like there鈥檚 little chance of escape and that the universe is out to get you.

To combat this, Mary-Anna, an Account Linguist at Sandberg, suggests that 鈥渋f you鈥檙e feeling like everything is insane and you have too much on your plate, walking away from your screen for just one minute and simply breathing helps. One minute is not going to bring all of your jobs crashing down but it’ll help you breathe and focus.鈥�

 4. ? Using music to help you focus

Charlotte, another Account Linguist, has a slightly different approach to mitigating stress, involving music: 鈥淲hen I have a particularly heavy workload that requires me to power through and concentrate quite a lot, I have some special playlists that are made up of tracks with no lyrics, quite repetitive stuff that won鈥檛 distract me too much; I play them as a 鈥榯reat鈥�. On the one hand, it gets me motivated to focus on my projects because I鈥檓 looking forward to hearing the music, and on the other hand, my brain is now trained to be in a calm and focused mood when I hear that music.鈥�

It could be that these methods don鈥檛 work for you. Everyone鈥檚 brain processes stimuli differently, and it could take a modicum of fiddling about to find a strategy which matches your way of thinking and your lifestyle. However, it鈥檚 worth giving one or two of them a try, even if only to find out what works for you and what doesn鈥檛.

Stress and the issues it causes can be serious if left unaddressed. This article is intended to help you think about stress you may be experiencing and offer some tips that could help reduce it.

If you鈥檙e feeling the burden of stress is too heavy to bear, I would advise speaking to your GP or a mental health professional. There are many concrete ways they can help and guide you. After all, stress is something that鈥檚 going to be ever present in our lives to a greater or lesser degree: the vital thing is that we learn to deal with it as best we can.

The post Mental Health Awareness Week 2021: A few tips for translators appeared first on sa国际传媒.

This year, however, I decided to try to teach myself a new language. It鈥檚 less of a 鈥渘ew year鈥檚 resolution鈥� and more like a 鈥淛anuary resolution鈥� 鈥� while others are trying Veganuary or Dry January, I鈥檝e been attempting to teach myself Swedish using only free resources.

So why Swedish?

As a bit of background, I currently translate from three languages into English as part of my role as an Account Linguist at Sandberg. I started learning French and Spanish at secondary school, and then picked up German as a beginner at university, where I studied all three. Besides those, I鈥檝e dabbled in Icelandic, Sanskrit and a couple of other languages over the years, aided for the most part by apps such as Duolingo and the embarrassing number of barely-touched language learning books on my shelf, but I鈥檝e never made the foray into Swedish. Until now, that is.

Hopefully I can help you to make a start 鈥� after all, that鈥檚 the most difficult part!

I picked Swedish for a few reasons. First, there appeared to be a large number of resources out there, ranging from apps to websites describing grammar and YouTube videos about pronunciation. Second, many of my colleagues at Sandberg are either Swedish, know Swedish or have studied Swedish in the past, so I would be able to ask for help if needed. Finally, and perhaps most importantly 鈥� I wanted to be able to understand ABBA songs in their native language.

In this article, I鈥檒l explain the free resources I鈥檝e used and any problems I encountered while giving my opinion on the best ways to start learning a new language. It takes a lot of dedication if you鈥檙e thinking of starting a new language from scratch, but hopefully I can help you to make a start 鈥� after all, that鈥檚 the most difficult part!

Setting the ground rules

Before starting this challenge, I decided to set myself some rules:

1. First of all, I would only practise for 45 minutes per day, i.e. the amount of time I would normally spend commuting on the train in the pre-COVID world. I chose this amount of time for a variety of reasons, the most important being that it is more sustainable to practise a language every single day for a short period of time rather than once or twice a week for a few hours. It also gives your brain a chance to let the new information you鈥檝e learnt sink in, rather than overloading it with vocabulary for two hours and then forgetting everything straight away.
2. Secondly, as I mentioned above, I would only be using free resources to learn Swedish, so there鈥檇 be no buying of Swedish textbooks or paying for premium versions of apps 鈥� I want to prove how it really is possible to start learning a language without spending anything.
3. Finally, at the end of the month, I would need to take a test to see whether I鈥檇 managed to reach (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). This is because I think it鈥檚 really important to have tangible goals in mind when learning a language.

Week 1

For the first couple of days, I didn鈥檛 have much of a plan about which resources I wanted to use. I started off with the apps that I knew already 鈥� and . If you haven鈥檛 come across either of these apps before, they basically gamify the language-learning experience, and most would agree that they are a lower-effort method of revising vocabulary and learning new words, though neither explain the grammar behind the words and phrases.

As my aim was to get to at least A1 level of Swedish by the end of the month, I quickly realised that I would need to introduce a different resource which explained both grammar and basic but useful vocabulary. This is how I came across the website . If you鈥檙e trying to learn a new language from scratch, I would advise doing some googling until you find the best resources for you 鈥� everyone has different learning styles, after all!

I ended up using Say it in Swedish throughout the entire month as my principal source of learning material. I found that each topic was explained succinctly, mixing both grammatical themes and a variety of fundamental topics such as family, colours, directions and parts of the body, all of which are really handy basics when you鈥檙e learning a language from scratch.

Where I wanted to learn more about a certain topic, I found it really useful to search for more information online, and in some cases asked questions of my patient colleagues, many of whom are already very experienced in Swedish or are native Swedish speakers themselves. This leads us nicely onto week two鈥�

Week 2

In week 2, I decided it鈥檇 be a good idea to research the different tenses that Swedish uses, to see what I was getting into and make some notes on the basics. To my absolute horror, I discovered a new concept which isn鈥檛 used in any of the other languages I鈥檝e learnt in the past.

Rather unhelpfully, the websites I was checking didn鈥檛 give much of an indication of when said concept (the , if you are interested and want to go down a rabbit hole of confusion) should be used, or why. But luckily, working in a Nordic translation company means I had a secret weapon: people who know Swedish.

I bothered a couple of colleagues to see if anyone could offer up an explanation where the internet had failed, and I was in luck. In a few minutes, a grammatical mess that I previously had no idea about had been untangled and suddenly seemed so much clearer. It鈥檚 at this juncture that I would highly recommend that you get yourself a friendly speaker of your target language to help you through sticky situations like this 鈥� there are plenty of communities online via social media and YouTube, for example.

By the end of the week, I had expanded my vocabulary further and had a better idea of how to form grammatically correct sentences, even if these were still limited to phrases such as 鈥渏ag har en svart katt och hon heter Tulip鈥� and 鈥渄et 盲r ett stort hus鈥�. Baby steps.

Week 3

At this point, I was starting to realise quite what I鈥檇 got myself into. Learning a language is no mean feat, especially trying to teach yourself. From scratch. Using solely free online resources. Motivation was waning and I hit a bit of a wall; the only thing keeping me from quitting was the fact that I鈥檇 committed to writing this article, and it鈥檇 be pretty embarrassing to admit that I gave up halfway through, before I鈥檇 even learnt how to ask for directions.

So I kept chugging along, incorporating some news articles in l盲tt Svenska (鈥渆asy Swedish鈥�) into my routine. I found this really helped me enjoy the learning process more than I had previously, as it introduced me to a variety of new, topical themes and awoke me to where and how specific grammatical concepts are used.

Another benefit of this style of learning is that it鈥檚 slightly more intuitive, as you can make educated guesses at what specific terms may mean in English based on the surrounding vocabulary. I鈥檇 definitely recommend varying the different resources and methods when learning a new language, not only because I find it effectively combats lack of motivation, but it also helps your brain to learn to process a variety of inputs as you would in your native language.

Week 4

By the start of the final week, I felt as though I鈥檇 developed a schedule that worked well for me 鈥� I鈥檇 finish work, have a tea break, and then make a start on Swedish. I was using a mix of the different methods described above, as well as making revision posters to stick up behind my desk and developing techniques to learn vocabulary more efficiently.

My favourite way to learn vocabulary, I鈥檝e decided, is writing down words repeatedly until they stick in my head. Sometimes you don鈥檛 need to have flashy apps and special games to learn vocabulary: if you鈥檙e anything like me, good old pen and paper does the trick!

31 January finally dawned and it was time to test myself on what I鈥檇 learnt and find out whether I had reached A1 level. I found two different online tests, which I will link to at the end of this article.

The first of these tests didn鈥檛 have any listening exercises, but it did provide questions on grammar and vocabulary, so I decided to take the results as evidence of my Swedish written comprehension and grammatical skills rather than an indicator of how 鈥済ood鈥� I was at the language on the whole. This first test gave me a result of 26 points out of 40, which apparently means that I have reached A2 level in terms of written comprehension and grammar, which was above what I expected!

However, the second test supplied some more in-depth results. It included sections on vocabulary and grammar, reading, listening, and also allows the test-taker to self-assess their writing and speaking skills. For this second test, my result averaged an A2 as well, though it dipped to A1 for listening.

Overall, I鈥檓 really proud of the results I achieved through this little experiment. While I鈥檓 yet undecided on whether I鈥檒l continue learning Swedish in the long term, I鈥檝e definitely learnt a lot 鈥� mainly, that consistency is key. Having spent just 45 minutes per day, every day, on learning this language and managing to reach A1/A2 level at the end of a month (in terms of comprehension at least!), I feel really accomplished and have managed to form a habit that I hope sticks with me in the future.

For anyone looking to learn a new language, whether it be Swedish or Mandarin, I truly would recommend that you try to learn a little bit every day and spend some time working out which techniques and resources work best for you. You don鈥檛 always need fancy apps or textbooks, there鈥檚 a whole world of alternative resources out there just waiting to be discovered.

The post How I learnt Swedish in 4 weeks appeared first on sa国际传媒.