Finland Three - Text
This sophisticated business executive was born in Lahti in 1953, moving to Helsinki at nineteen. She speaks of her education as an economics major, and of her work with the large international paper company where she had been employed for many years. She speaks interestingly of her background in languages, and reveals that English is the official language of her office in Helsinki. You will notice that her English is very fluent, though there are plenty of interesting features of a Finnish accent to be observed. She concludes by translating the first few lines of Comma Gets a Cure into Finnish. Recorded by Paul Meier, January 2004; edited by him January 27, 2004. Running time: 00:05:40
Transcription of Unscripted Speech
I was...born extensive years ago, in Lahti in, in Finland, and then, when I was something like uh 19 or 20, I moved to Helsinki, which is the capital of Finland, and I started to work there in a paper company, and then after a while I noticed I still want to study more, and then I went to school of economics in Helsinki and head for, the master's thesis of--of economics within four or five years, and then, after that, I went back to the same--same company, and actually I worked in that company...for all the years...so far, but changing very many times my job, so being--being in business controlling side, being in marketing side, being in--in administrative side and be--...most of the time in development work, and that seems to be the place where I--where I will be, so I am like a child, I just want to learn more and more. And then to my--maybe what I can tell concerning the company it's--it's um, one of the world's biggest paper companies and uh, we have 36,000 people there so, there are challenges enough for me if that is always possible to change--change the job of course. I--I must say that first I--I did like languages but some--somehow I--I did like German language a lot, and--and in the very beginning I--I didn't fancy so much English, and I think it was the reason of the teacher, because then when the teacher changed, somehow the one was so exciting and--and uh, then--then I really wanted to learn more and--and then I--I learned a lot of--lot of it in--in high school, and then actually English is our official language in our office, it has been for maybe 5, more than 5 years, so we are using En--English everyday. I make presentation even in English I don't know, but I do it. Uh, maybe when you talk about things in which you--which you know, you can do it. So we are..written--using written and--and oral English every day at work. Because then--then the company is very international, we have offices in more than 30 countries.
[Speaking Finnish: Comma gets a cure]
Unscripted Speech Transcribed by Faith Harvey 15 March 2008