I have been a full-time freelance translator since February 2003.
I have been a full-time freelance translator since February 2003.
I have 15 years' experience in the computing industry of writing I.T.-related documents of all kinds, notably user requirements, technical specifications, operations guides and user guides. I have also been an end-user of such documents produced by others. Therefore, I am able to offer a practical added-value which another translator without the benefit of years of both writing and using such documents would not.
For my first year as a freelance, I lived and worked in Paris, which in addition to gaining me my first clients (all of which I have retained to this day), gave me a valuable insight into the machinations of French administration, the tax system, and similar aspects of life in France.
I have been based in the UK since March 2004.
There is, of course, more to translating than simply having a decent understanding of a foreign language. To this end, while I was still working in IT, I decided to take the Institute of Linguists' Diploma in Translation (French to English, merit awarded in the Technology paper) in November 1996.
To complete the academic background, in July 1987, I obtained a B.A. (Hons) in Business Administration With French from Loughborough Univeristy of Technology. Hence I have a solid background in commercial disciplines such as accounting, marketing, production management, human resources and so on.
Not long after obtaining my translation qualification, the company for which I was working was taken over by a French company. From 1999, I worked exclusively on a project to build a single IT system for use by insurance underwriting departments in the UK, in France, and in the Dutch and Belgian subsidiaries. This role was a move away from what was previously an essentially technical IT role, both in this and in previous jobs. My everyday work - which could be summed up as specifying the system and then explaining the system to various parties, both end-user and IT - was conducted in both English and French interchangeably.
Having initially performed this role by commuting across the channel on a weekly basis, I lived and worked in Paris from 2001 until my return to the UK in 2004.