"Ingenjören hittar ingen tolk."
Translation:The engineer cannot find an interpreter.
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1583
Your image of what an engineer does is a bit limited. The information about what needs to be constructed or repaired comes from people. If he or she has a conversation with the client, I think it would be useful to have an interpreter. In a conversation you can immediately check if you understand each other well and if necessary you can make something clear with a sketch.
1583
Yes, we want to learn Swedish. You should reflect this difference in the Swedish sentence in your English translation. "Ingenjören hittar ingen tolk."="The engineer finds no interpreter." and "Ingenjören hittar inte en tolk."="The engineer doesn't find an interpreter."
As a native English speaker, every time I see this example the translation hurts my brain because not only does it sound incredibly awkward, I don't know what it is supposed to mean. Is this implying the engineer is looking for an interpreter and cannot find one? Or that he does not need an interpreter? I accept the literal translation of the sentence but I can't imagine a scenario where this would ever sound natural in English.
A mechanical engineer works with machines. A chemical engineer works with chemicals. An electrical engineer works with electricity. A civil engineer works with infrastructure. If any of them were at an international engineering conference, an interpreter or two might be needed. But if the engineer finds no interpreter then she might have to rely on google translate :)
My SAOL app for showing all of the forms of words lists for "tolk" three possible meanings, one of which is "'ett mätverktyg". This sounds to me like a much more likely sort of "tolk" that an engineer might look for whilst working. Is this a general term for any tool used for measuring, or is it a specific tool? If the latter, which one is it?