# Swedish: Ta en avstämning



## Mr.TechComm

Hur kan man översätta "*Vi kan väl ta en avstämning efter ert möte på onsdag?*" till engelska?

"Mötet" är en jobbintervju. Den som frågar jobbar på ett bemanningsföretag och vill att den andra personen hör av sig efter intervjun och berättar hur det gick.

Kan man översätta den som "Can we please touchbase on Wednesday after your meeting?".*Touchbase:*​To talk to someone; to confer with someone briefly​_McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs._​To talk to someone in order to find out how they are or what they think about something​_Cambridge Idioms Dictionary, 2nd ed. _​_

Va snäll och rätta min text på svenska (jag menar "feel free to correct my text in Swedish" och hoppas att det låter artigt)_


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## jette(DK)

Jeg håber, en dansker også må lege med!

Mon ikke der menes, at de skal 'afstemme forventninger' ?

Så ville oversættelsen være: Let's coordinate our expectationes after your job interview on Wednesday.


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## Mr.TechComm

jette(DK) said:


> Jeg håber, en dansker også må lege med!
> 
> Mon ikke der menes, at de skal 'afstemme forventninger' ?
> 
> Så ville oversættelsen være: Let's coordinate our expectationes after your job interview on Wednesday.



Well, it was definitely about aligning expectations after the interview, so I like your input.

I actually forgot to name my post as "Swedish: (...)" and I can't manage to edit the title, but needless to say that you Danes are more than welcome to participate in this thread. It helps me learn Nordic languages  

Let's see what others say on this.


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## kilton

I'd say *touch base* (note: two words) is good. It's a very common way of saying what you're trying to say here. Another option that comes to mind -- perhaps more informal -- is _"Can we *sync up* on Wednesday after your meeting?"_


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## bicontinental

Mr.TechComm said:


> "Mötet" är en jobbintervju. Den som frågar jobbar på ett bemanningsföretag och vill att den andra personen hör av sig efter intervjun och berättar hur det gick.



  That doesn’t sound too formal, so ‘_touch base’_ would work well. I can’t say too much about ‘_sync_ _up_’…I’ve only come across it a few times where it was used with sexual undertones?
  Other possibilities:
_Let’s touch base/compare notes after your interview._
_Please follow up with me after the interview_…or simply
_Please let me know how things go (with the interview)_
  Bic.


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## kilton

bicontinental said:


> I can’t say too much about ‘_sync_ _up_’…I’ve only come across it a few times where it was used with sexual undertones?



Interesting -- never heard it used that way. Are you perhaps thinking of _hook up?_


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## bicontinental

kilton said:


> Interesting -- never heard it used that way. Are you perhaps thinking of _hook up?_



No, kilton, I don't think so, although you're right, that's one to be careful with as well.

Edit: 
  I’m not finding many online references to _sync up_, but this WR thread seems to support what you’re saying, kilton. http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1102363

  But then I also found this in the Urban Dictionary, for whatever it’s worth:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sync+up. 
  In sum, I’m not sure 
Best,
Bic.


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## jette(DK)

Originally, it was my impression that MrTech.Comm was insecure about the meaning of 'afstämning'. My reply was an attempt to remedy that. If indeed we all agree, and also from the very start MrTech.Comm, that the meaning is 'coordination/alignment (of expectations)', why do you insist on translations that sound good but don't cover the fact that they not only arrange to meet and tell each other how things went, but also to reach a common agreement on how to proceed from there? In other words: What can the job applicant rightfully expect from the agency after the interview? Is that implied in 'touch base' and 'sync up'?

'Forventningsafstemning' is frightfully widespread in Danish management lingo as 'afstämning av forventninger' also may be in in Swedish. Is there a close translation (coordination/alignment of expectations?) in English and if so, why not use is?


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## kilton

The original post didn't say anything about coordination of expectations. He asked about how to say that _"den andra personen hör av sig efter intervjun och berättar hur det gick"_. That's what _"touch base"_ and_ "sync up"_ mean, colloquially. In this case, I would say these terms also imply additional discussion of how to proceed (because it would probably be senseless to discuss how the interview went, but then not discuss what to do next), but one can also explicitly lay it out with something like _"touch base and discuss our next steps"._ 

The phrase and _"align expectations" _is a possibility but it's more formal and, to me, implies something more than simply discussing the next steps -- usually it would be used at the beginning of the process (i.e., during the first discussion between the job seeker and the recruiter) to make sure the seeker understands how the recruiter works.

So, I wasn't trying to come up with a literal translation of _"avstämning"_. I suspect we would need a Swede's input for that.


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## jette(DK)

The original post asked:

Hur kan man översätta "*Vi kan väl ta en avstämning efter ert möte på onsdag?*" till engelska?

The following sentence was giving context: "Mötet" är en jobbintervju. Den som frågar jobbar på ett bemanningsföretag och vill att den andra personen hör av sig efter intervjun och berättar hur det gick.


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## JohanIII

I find "touch base" a good way of saying _ta en avstämning_.
What is to be _avstämt_ is not defined, except by context, which works with "touch base" too.

Vi kan väl = Let's.


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## bicontinental

JohanIII said:


> I find "touch base" a good way of saying _ta en avstämning_.
> What is to be _avstämt_ is not defined, except by context, which works with "touch base" too.
> Vi kan väl = Let's.



...appreciate the native input!


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## Mr.TechComm

Wow! Thanks a lot to you all. This is a real Swedish-English lesson!

I didn't know the meaning of "*att avstämma*". Before opening this post, I searched on Språkrådet's online dictionary but, strangely enough, I didn't get any results. Now that I have seen the translation in tyda.se is a lot clearer to me:Eng: *coordinate*; adapt; *harmonize*​Synonym:  *koordinera*, avpassa, stämma av​
I think that "*align*" is a good translation of the expression in question, as well as "*touch base*"; not "touchbase"! Kilton, thanks for the correction! I have heard this verb so many times at work but I have never seen it written. After I wrote it incorrectly, I had a look at the definition and copied it in my initial post _ignoring _the right spelling completely, which is what I tend to do when I think I know something 

Jette(DK), here in Sweden I hear "*align*" and "*consolidate*" in business meetings all the time. Some people go mad with these vebs. They use "align" when they mean "talk" or "meet"; I guess it gives you a status. 
... so I'm not surprise about "forventningsafstemning" being widely spread in Danish management meetings, and I wouldn't be surprise if "*avstämning*" is also widely spread in Swedish business; unfortunately I do not attend many Swedish meetings, so I can't really tell if Swedes go mad with this verb as well.

But the thing is that after all this, *I still find it difficult to know the exact meaning of the noun "avstämning" in similar contexts*. I have the feeling that the meaning of avstämning in the text below is similar to what we talk about in this thread, but I am not 100% sure. What do they really mean? Is it "A chance for aligning and feedback"? Maybe "A chance for harmonising and feedback"? Sounds silly!

På fredagen var det mitt-i-kursen-redovisning för studenterna på Kungliga Musikhögskolan. Ett tillfälle för *avstämning *och feedback. Var och en spelar upp hela eller delar av sitt arbete, berättar vad man gjort och hur man tänker. (Source: Radioskrivarbloggen, ur.se)

​PS: Sorry to ask a second question on a different text in the same thread (I know this is not allowed in the forum), but the purpose for me is to know what Swedes mean with a verb (avstämma) and a noun (avstämning) that don't even appear on Språkrådet's Lexin dictionary.


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## JohanIII

Widen your sources of lexica. Check this forum's stickies!

SAOL gives the examples for _avstämma_ as _ställa in svängningskrets (i radioapparat)_ - i.e. tune (electronics); and _kontrollera överensstämmelse av uppgifter_.
So in a human instead of electronic sense, I submit you can tune yourself to another person.
In situational understanding (as in the above context), or for that matter emotionally.
And for the second part you can check your understanding of facts or expectations or whatnot, on paper or not.

SAOB (STÄMMA.v1) gives a further variant: _pejla l. undersöka l. utforska (opinion l. allmän mening o. d.); äv. abs.: pejla stämningen l. opinionen_.
Which to me is a meaning that comes less easily to mind, but is in the neighbourhood.

If you have *checked* what you've jotted down during a meeting, with another man that has another set, you both give *feedback*. After you have transferred discrepancies, you have *harmonized* the two sets, and they are now *aligned*/attuned. You can then proceed to *consolidate* your data by throwing away one set


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## Mr.TechComm

Got it!    
Tusen tack, JohanIII
I appreciate you took the time to provide me with such a good and elaborated answer.


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