Need a translator?

I am Päivi Creber, a full-time staff translator and editor with a freelancing business on the side. My working languages are Finnish and English.

I specialised in these languages during my 20-odd years as a freelance translator in the UK.

My first language is Finnish and I was born in Finland, but I have lived in the UK for most of my working life.

In 2019 I returned to Finland for 18 months to work as an in-house translator for the Prime Minister's Office. The Notes... blog posts on this website are from that time.

I found translating for the government a natural next step in my career and I really enjoyed working with the team in Helsinki, so I later grabbed the opportunity to apply for a permanent position.

But I have also registered a self-employed business in Finland for freelancing. I pay all taxes myself, and my business is exempt from VAT due to small volume of sales.

My freelancing career offered a great opportunity to develop my skills across many fields, from advertising to law, and forge long-term relationships with my clients.

I love learning new skills, most recently related to clear language and accessibility.

For quotes and for further information on projects, visit
www.linkedin.com/in/paivicreber

For other Finnish freelance translators, you could check the directories of these professional organisations
www.sktl.fi
www.ciol.org.uk
www.iti.org.uk

My experience in brief

Finnish into English
- marketing and corporate information, such as annual reports
- government and the EU
- education and training
- human resources
- forestry

English into Finnish
- sales and marketing, both business-to-business and customer
- advertising
- human resource and leadership training
- surveys and interview questions
- enterprise resource planning applications

Legal
- contracts
- legislation
- court and police documents
- user terms and conditions

Technical
- medical equipment software and manuals
- machine and equipment manuals and specifications
- material safety data
- clothing industry specifications

Other areas
- travel and hospitality
- exhibition notes and catalogues
- recipes
- games

Formats
- copywriting
- editing and proofreading
- language skills assessment
- software localisation
- website updates
- magazine and newspaper articles
- newsletters
- teaching
- voice-over

MA in Translating and Interpreting (University of Eastern Finland, 1999), Member of Kieliasiantuntijat - Language Experts, Diploma in Public Service Interpreting (DPSI), Cambridge Certificate in Teaching English Language for Adults (CELTA)

Notes from Finland - Height of summer

There went the April showers and darling buds of May. I can't get over the fact how similar the plant life, and the seasons, are in Helsinki and in Sheffield. It just shows how 'Finland' for me has meant ' North Karelia ' or possibly 'Lapland' at a stretch. I roll my eyes when immigrants and visitors make assumptions about Britain; how they take one area or group of people to represent such a diverse country. And now I find myself doing just that about the place where I was born. Ilosaarirock 2019 Saturday about 24,000 people. We're on the train, on our way to spend a weekend in mummola, aka my parents. And I get to go to Ilosaarirock . I don't want to make jokes about early onset dementia but for the life of me I can't remember whether I've been before. Only recently I insisted that I'd seen ZZ Top in Puistoblues but when I checked the dates I realised there was no way I could have been there. At least I'll keep some memorie...

Notes from Finland: Spring 2020

28 May 2020 at 10.30pm I hadn't been out tonight so I decided to go for a quick ten minute walk in the evening sun. It's the lightest time of the year and after an overcast day we got a gorgeous, bright evening. The bird cherry is in bloom and I've just seen the first strawberry flowers in the woods, probably some garden escapees because they were too big for wild plants. Lily-of the-valley covers the forest floor, with the last of the wood anemones peaking through the leaves. Nearby woods on 27 May, favourite time of the day About life in Helsinki this spring I seriously thought about writing something that did not even mention, you know, the virus. But that would have been dishonest since it has affected our lives in so many ways. I'd been getting this nagging feeling that I should be recording the current events. That feeling's been alleviated a great deal since I realised everybody is doing it: photographers taking snapshots of daily life, a lo...

Notes from Finland - First impressions

And here I am, in a commuter train, looking at the snow falling on rooftops and birch branches. Learning to use my new phone with freezing fingers. In Helsinki, on my way to a new job. First impressions I usually stay in Finland for around six weeks every year with friends and family. But now we have a flat in the suburbs of Helsinki and are straddling two countries. For me, it's back to Finland for real after twenty years. Living here makes you look at things in a different light. Like noticing how twenty below zero doesn't stop people from wearing fake leather trousers, long sparkly nails or cowboy boots. And after a long search I remember snowboots are sold on a different aisle in the supermarket, not where they have normal shoes. But most importantly, air in our flat is so dry our clothes are ready to wear in a few hours after washing. Even after taking a shower there's no condensation running down the windows. And the radiators are not even warm! I don't know...

Päivi Creber | Professional and qualified Finnish translator