Welcome. Below I list the fields of which I have detailed knowledge, followed by a brief account of my background. I specialise in the following subjects:

legal legal/financial business

general school diplomas

I mainly translate from Dutch into English, but of course also from English into Dutch. I translate German into English as well.

This is my background.
I am Dutch by origin, but at the age of 13 I moved to Canada and two years later to England. I obtained a degree in German and Law at the University of Surrey, which is located near Wimbledon. After graduation I returned to the Netherlands, and I worked in a variety of jobs. Further to a job application, I was taken on at a translation agency which had just begun to specialise in legal translations. From the outset, I was regarded as the terminology expert, but I still had a lot to learn in terms of translation. I worked at the translation agency for six years and in this way I gained experience in a wide variety of legal texts, became familiar with financial terminology and broadened my range by dealing with very diverse general texts, mainly business related but also, for instance, school diplomas. In time, I became in charge of training new colleagues. In addition to translation, I dealt with questions and (rare!) complaints from clients about our translations and, in the absence of my boss, I negotiated very difficult orders with our clients.

As per the first of January 2001, I began to work as a freelance translator. For a long time, I only worked for translation agencies on account of a very broad non-competition clause of my (former) employer. However, this no longer applies and I would be happy to accept any direct clients.
At my workplace, I have at my disposal a considerable range of specialist books. Several of these I bought in England, among these several law books and a dictionary of English which is larger than any one available in the Netherlands.

In time, I also hope to be able to work as a lawyer in the Netherlands. For this reason, I have enrolled at the Open University and if all goes according to plan, I will complete my introductory year ["propedeuse"] late 2004.

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