WELCOME!

Do you need subtitles for your video?

I am Maija Tuukkanen, the entrepreneur of Polysemia.
I am specialized in creating subtitles for videos in English, in Finnish, and accessibly.

Below, you can get familiar with my services and my business.

See my published works on the Portfolio page.

You can send an offer request via the contact form here.

Services

Request an offer here!

Subtitles are delivered in SRT file format unless otherwise requested.
You can upload SRT files directly to for example your YouTube videos.
Other subtitle file formats are also possible upon request.

Pricing

All services are priced case by case based on the length of the video in minutes.

Other factors affecting the price are language(s), direction of translation,
content’s field of specialty and urgency of the order among others.

Services are offered exclusive of VAT which will be added to the total sum of the invoice, if applicable.
VAT is +24 % in Finland.

Long-term contracts are negotiated separately.

About Polysemia

My name is Maija Tuukkanen. I am the owner and founder of Polysemia and I work as a self-employed translator. I graduated from the University of Tampere in December 2014. I’ve been working as an audio-visual translator ever since 2013 gaining experience in translating news, current affairs programs, feature films, television series and documentaries.

In the fall of 2019, I was given the opportunity to start collaborating with various language service agencies as a subcontractor, which also brought about the setting up of my own business. At first, I translated factual texts, but soon enough SDH and subtitle translation projects started filling up my calendar. In the summer of 2020, I invented a name for my business: Polysemia, which in English translates as polysemy.

Currently, I mostly translate TV series and feature films. You can check my public references on the Portfolio page. Besides translating TV shows, I also create subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH) for Finnish television and occasionally translate factual texts as well. I also have experience in subtitling webinars, press briefings, marketing videos and product presentations to name a few.

Why the name Polysemia?

The word polysemy means the capacity of a sign, such as a word or a phrase, to have multiple meanings. The word comes from Greek: πολύ-, polý-, ‘many’ and σῆμα, sêma, ‘sign’. Some examples of polysemes are the English word ‘play’ and the Finnish word ‘kieli’ (which in English can mean ‘a language’, ‘a tongue’, ‘a string’ of an instrument, or ‘a bolt’ of a lock).

As a translator I have been interested in the polysemy of words and the differences in meaning created by choice of words ever since I was studying translation. I even studied differences in meaning in my Master’s Thesis. I am intrigued by the subtle nuances created by the choice of words and the different but related senses within the semantic field of a word. This phenomenon a translator must contemplate on all the time. A good translator recognizes these differences and can find the right word or phrase to convey the original meaning of the source language in the target language correctly.