I was fortunate enough to be brought up bi-lingual with a German father and an English mother. My father’s parents had homes in London and Switzerland and I was therefore exposed to languages from an early age. By age twelve I was fluent in English, French and German.
I was educated in the private school system in the UK and at age 15 was one of just thirteen children to take an ‘o’ level in the special subject of French History studied and examined in French. I then went on to obtain a degree in French and a supplementary degree in Business Administration.
I have established, run built and sold a number of my own companies, these have always had to use my language skills and as such I have been translating in one form or another since an early age; particularly since no one in my family spoke French I found myself translating for them from about age 10 on.
Now I am semi-retired and have homes in France, Spain and the UK, translating is a great way for me to keep my language skills up to date. To me it is very important that a translator translates into his mother tongue, the tongue in which he received his primary education, but that he also has a good grasp of the languages he is translating from. I have lived in both Germany and France and have a good grasp of the local colloquialisms and idiosyncrasies that one needs to understand in order to truly speak a language like a local.
I have a good knowledge of computers and use various CAT tools amongst which are Trados and Fluency.