This paper investigates and discusses translation options for metaphors, metonymy and culture-specific references to institutions, political names and terms. The method has been to translate an English social science text into Swedish, selecting some samples that in some way provide a challenge for translation, then discussing what the translation problem is and how it can be solved with the aid of translation theories, dictionaries and corpora. For metaphor and metonymy, Lakoff & Johnson (1980[2003]) has been used for analysis. Newmark (1988) and (1991) have been mainly used for the culture-specific references, and also to some extent Vinay & Darbelnet (1995). The results are that while conceptual metaphor theory can reveal the underlying structures of metaphors and metonymy which can aid the translator in choosing translation options, it is also important to use corpora, internet searches and parallel texts to see which domains that may co-occur in the target language. Parallel texts have been useful for culture-specific references to institutions, political names and terms as well, and the best translation option was considered to be transference with a complementary addition in the form of a descriptive equivalent because it enables the reader to receive information of the SL culture while at the same time explaining the phenomena, with some exceptions.