PROFESSIONAL & PERSONAL DETAILS size +2>

I’m a mature translator, with lots of personnal & professional experiences.

I was born in a bilingual family comprising doctors, scientists, diplomats and educationalists, who cultivated a strong tradition of Anglo-French (and other languages) culture and education, which strongly influenced me from a very early age.

My own formal education is basically literary and so is my approach of translation. I am a text craftworker who spent virtually months of my life chiselling texts. I have degrees in linguistics, grammar & literature both in the English en French languages. My qualification as a professional translator gained in 2005 completed this linguistic curriculum.

I have been working in translation for about 10 years and as a freelancer for 9 years.
I did my translation training and degrees rather late, in the late 90s-early 2000s after a number of professional experiences in the business sector .
Indeed, I came to translation after several jobs as a personal assistant working in English in >b>various commercial businesses and law firms (eg. Gide Loyrette Nouel and Graham Miller Loss Adjusters) in France, most of them operating globally. After about 10 years, I qualified as a proofreader and worked in various magazines (incl. Terre Sauvage & 01 Informatique ) for three years. I then lived in England and then in Normandy and enjoy a strong personal and professional relationship with English writer D. Petley . I first translated two of his novels ( Little Nineveh , pub. by Polygon in 1998 and White Lies pub. by 4th Estate in 2003). Together, we translated Maurice Genevoix’s novel La Boîte à Pêche in 2004 which was short-listed in 2006 for the Oxford-Weidenfeld literary translation award .

My major domain of specialisation are science and medicine, including pharmaceuticals.

With a similar level of experience, I am a proven specialist of management/business/marketing translations.

In 2010, I translated about 380.000 words combining all such fields.

MY IDEA OF QUALITY

With my experience as a proofreader/editor of science documents, I try to focus on ACCURACY . I feel that the target text has to be a REFLECTION of the source text and convey the whole message exactly as it is meant. Clients deserve this at least. But they also deserve STYLE and BRILLIANCE. So I offer WRITING SKILLS to my clients; readability is my major goal, so I work on fluency and concision, and I think I manage to produce very natural text. My approach is based on a detailed knowledge of the essential differences between English and French , so I work on the linguistic resources of the target language a lot.
Technically speaking, I have all my tools within reach and use them profusely. CR-Rom Dictionaries, online dictionaries including for French, Termium, DéjàVu, and glossaries which I have been building up over the years. Research being key to this job, I use the Internet extensively, double or triple checking doubtful translations, sometimes with the help of colleagues.
I often browse professional magazines, and prior to translating a particular text, I spend time (whenever there is time!) to read everything I can on the subjects to be translated. Never translating anything unless I'm absolutely confident and never delivering anything that isn't clear for me is a golden rule. One thing I know is that I don't know everything.

I enjoy professional, friendly relationships with the agencies I work for, based on mutual trust, honesty and service. I hold my deadlines and try to understand my clients/work providers’ needs to the best of my abilities.

I love this job because it is one that makes you learn all the time and hope that given my experience, I can be trusted to work in new subjects.