Career / Experience

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

May 1993 – now
(mostly on a full-time basis, but sometimes part-time)
Self-Employed Freelance Translator / Editor / Technical Writer / Marketing Copywriter working for various American, European, Asian & Pacific Rim companies, translating, editing and writing documents in a wide range of technical subjects. I’m also a US<>UK English localizer/cultural consultant and style advisor.

May 1999 – April 2001
European Languages Team Leader of a former translation agency, Hong Kong
• Headed up the very busy European Languages Department of the agency
• Responsible for hiring and testing of linguists in Hong Kong and overseas
• Allocated resources for localization projects of major HK/China Web sites
• Supported sales by identifying clients’ linguistic requirements and defining empowering linguistic strategies to help them achieve their multilingual goals
• Generated sales leads by researching Hong Kong companies on the Web and coordinated and executed direct mail/email/fax and print ad campaigns
• Assisted in setting up projects and addressing ongoing production issues
• Translated, edited, proofread and built glossaries from French, German, Spanish, Italian to UK/US English & helped assure the quality of deliverables
• Converted text from US to UK English for corporate Web localization projects (orthography, grammar & punctuation, variant words & cultural references)
• Designed the corporate Web site and wrote the English Web site content
• Worked with demanding world-class clients like Prudential Asia Ltd, Concord Camera Corporation, Minolta, Cushman-Wakefield, Sony Corporation of Hong Kong, Lemon-Asia.com, Chinese Television Network (CTN, Star TV), Cable & Wireless Hong Kong Telecom (Pacific Century Cyberworks), Hongkong Land (biggest property developer in Hong Kong), ESDlife.com (HK government site).

1998 Literary Critic / Project Manager, The Pentland Press Ltd (London, England).
At an independent UK publishing house, I reviewed manuscripts submitted by authors, created storyline synopses (for works of fiction) or subject synopses (for works of nonfiction), penned cover blurbs and drew up reports discussing the book’s desirability for publication. I conducted author liaison for the purposes of discussing the book publishing process, or to explain delicately why our company decided to decline publication. I additionally informed the authors about issues of length, style, structure, grammar, punctuation and spelling in their manuscripts and made suggestions for possible improvements in these areas. In these roles, I learned much about editing, literary criticism and diplomatic client relations.

1995-1998 English Dictionary Editor, Bloomsbury Publishing (London).
Project: Encarta World English Dictionary (EWED), an ambitious joint
venture undertaken by Bloomsbury and Microsoft, the most significant entirely new dictionary published worldwide in the past 20 years. I conducted research into scientific neologisms in burgeoning fields like genetics, biotechnology, information technology, et cetera, and compiled and managed a large electronic text corpus of current English.

1994-1995 English-French Dictionary Editor, Larousse Editorial (London and Paris).
I was a contributing editor to the Larousse Unabridged French-English English-French Dictionary (known as the Grand Dictionnaire). While primarily a contributor of neologisms and technical terminology in English, I also conducted research into the adoption of ‘de-Anglicized’ medical and scientific terms in French; interesting!

1993-1996 English Dictionary Editor, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England).
I was involved with various encyclopedic English dictionary projects, assisting primarily on enhancing coverage of science and technology fields. The publications I contributed to include The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language (ODEL), The New Oxford Dictionary of English (NODE), The Oxford Dictionary of Computing and The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Revised 2nd Edition (in print and on CD-ROM), inter alia, and I also did general linguistic research work, including discovery and submission of neologisms (newly coined words), a very important task which was not, however, directly related to any specific project.

1992 and earlier Full-Time University / High School Student, Oxford/Durham, UK


EDUCATION HISTORY

1982-1988
Straight A Student in the English “O”-Level exams (at age 16) achieving Grade A in the following subjects: English Language, English Literature, French, German, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Geography, Accounting. (Exception: Grade C in Physics.)

1988-1989
Straight A Student in the English “A”-Level higher exams (at age 18) in the following subjects: English Literature, French, German. Distinction in German in the English “S”-Level special advanced exam (at age 18) – which is equivalent to first-year university exams. Merit in French in the English “S”-Level (Special level) advanced examination.

1989-1992, B.A.
Oxford University Bachelor of Arts (Honours), German/Linguistics
St John’s College, University of Oxford, England

1993-1996, B.Sc.
Durham University Bachelor of Science (Honours), Psychology/Biopsychology
St Aidan’s College, University of Durham, England


INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Highly computer-literate in general, and an enthusiastic, daily user of the Internet since the Web's infancy in 1992, I’m always willing to acquire and master new software and hardware. Just don’t ask me to do any programming or Web design...

Operating System:
Windows 10 with international language packs

Software: (will purchase any others on request)
Microsoft Office 2010 Professional, SDL Trados 2021, Adobe Photoshop 8.0, Adobe Pagemaker 7.0, Adobe Framemaker 7.2, Illustrator 10.0, Adobe Acrobat XI Pro, InDesign CS3, Quark XPress 6.1, Microsoft Proofing Tools in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Romanian and Polish.

Hardware:
Two laptop PCs, one MacBook Pro.
Laser printer, scanner, fax machine, etc... I can purchase anything else required.


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Reference Materials: I’m an avid — you might say obsessive — buyer of dictionaries and other reference works in both print and digital formats. I currently own around 80 dictionaries in nine languages! There are definitely worse addictions than this... If I’m not 100% sure how to translate a word or phrase, I always consult several references, in addition to many online dictionaries, glossaries and other resources, so as to render the translation as fluently, accurately, concisely, unambiguously and stylishly as possible. I consider myself to be the consummate perfectionist.

Media Use/Travel: I enjoy reading foreign-language media (newspapers, magazines, books, movies & websites) to remain well-informed about the ever-developing society and culture of the languages I translate, and to ensure I’m always as well-versed as possible in the up-to-the-minute written style of these languages. I also travel widely throughout Europe and Asia whenever possible. I have also lived in the USA (California) (5 years), Spain (2 years), France (1 year), Mexico (6 months), Hong Kong (2 years), Thailand (3 years), the Philippines (1 year) and, of course, England, where I spent my formative years until I began travelling the world at the age of 21.


PROFESSIONAL REFERENCES
As a professional service provider, I have a duty to preserve the confidentiality of my clients, and I’ve entered into non-disclosure agreements to this effect. I therefore do not provide the phone numbers or e-mails of reference contacts. However, I have a continuously growing client base of currently around 25 corporations in Europe, North America and Asia/Pacific Rim which provide me with regular translation, editing or writing work. I’m confident that these customers would vouch for my accuracy, terminology know-how, writing style and respect for delivery deadlines; their continuing loyalty to me over several years is proof of that. Instead, I can provide samples of my work.

   Pricing / Other services

LANGUAGE PAIRS & PRICING

Native language: British English, equally well-versed in US English and possessing a solid mastery of written German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian and Catalan.
Productivity: 6,000 words per day, 40,000 words/week. (If pushed: Up to 9,000 words per day.)
French > English €0.08/word
German > English €0.09/word
Dutch > English €0.09/word
Swedish/Danish/Norwegian > English €0.10/word
Spanish > English €0.08/word Prices converted to $ and £ will vary.
Catalan > English €0.09/word All prices are negotiable, depending
Italian > English €0.08/word on the size and regularity of the
Portuguese > English €0.08/word translation or editing projects.
Polish/Romanian > English €0.09/word
US English <> UK English conversion €0.02/word (aware of all differences)
English Editing: €0.02/word. No minimum charge. 30-day payment, cheque/bank transfer.
I can also accept payment per line or per page or a fixed sum for the whole job, if it is equivalent. I can do a short test translation, not over 300 words, free of charge.