The mission of the Language Centre’s Language Services unit is to support the University in its bilingual, international and multicultural activities. We provide language training for University staff and doctoral programmes as well as translation and language revision services to the University community. In addition, we offer fee-based courses in Finnish to external clients, which are also available free of charge to the University’s international staff and postgraduate students.
The duties of Language Services also include, where necessary, the coordination of projects and development duties related to the communications and language training of University staff, the implementation of the University’s language policy, and other activities that require language services.
In 2016 Language Services had a full- and part-time staff of 33 teachers, 21 translators, 53 language revisors and six administrative employees.
LANGUAGE TRAINING SERVICES
The tailored language training services previously offered by Language Services to external clients were transferred to the University of Helsinki Centre for Continuing Education (HY+) on 1 March 2016.
Open Finnish courses have continued to be offered free of charge to the University’s international staff and postgraduate students: more than 25% of the course participants were members of the University community in 2016.
All Language Services’ training has been standardised according to the credit system of Finnish universities (=workload) and the requirements of the Common European Frame of Reference for Languages (=skills level) and can therefore be incorporated into other studies.
TRANSLATION AND LANGUAGE REVISION SERVICES
The University units ordered a total of 5,756 pages of translations in 2016, mostly from Finnish into English and Swedish. A total of 39,097 pages of texts written by members of the University community were revised, mostly academic English-language texts.
Language Services collects client feedback on all services: the clients consistently praise both the staff’s professional skills and the Language Services’ customer service!
Text: Seija Korhonen