Your success is my success. Let’s make it happen!
My mission statement
Communication
I can only offer a good service asking lots of questions to ensure I know what you need. I will aim to ask them all at the beginning, but sometimes questions do come up later, and I won’t shy away from them. This is easier with direct clients than in complex communication channels via agencies. If you are an agency and there’s a communication issue, I will endeavour to make you aware because my aim is to produce the best work, which requires the best communication.
Dedication
Taking time to be finickity to offer you the best and most idiomatic translation is part of my pride. I do not take shortcuts unless forced to. My translations are well-researched, carefully crafted, and idiomatic. And they’re better slow-baked.
Joy translating and learning
I translate because it’s a creative job that I enjoy and I choose areas of work that I have a personal interest in. That makes it a breeze to engage in lifelong learning without resenting the time and cost, because, as you know, being at the top requires continuous learning and innovation.
Pride
I’m only happy with a service that makes me proud. This was instilled by my mother from early childhood who always insisted in us working hard to be proud of our results. That means insisting on decent deadlines, time to revise properly and fair fees.
Social responsibility
Before coming into translation, I worked as a Spanish lecturer for twenty years where equality and diversity were key ethos. As a translator, I bring my experience and personal ethos into my work. I want your texts to be accessible to all your current and potential customers and I want all of them to feel included. Better accessibility and inclusivity will mean happier customers, and probably more customers. It is for that reason that I don’t mind ‘agonising’ on linguistic choices such as the use of italics or the use of gender-neutral language, the same as I would agonise to achieve the most creative solution, the clearest punctuation or the most logical order of information. What for others is timewasting or agonising (in my recent experience), for me is a seal of quality. I’m sure you approach your business the same way.
Testimonials
I would not be lying if I told you that this is possibly the best translation I have received for this exercise. I love how you have solved the cultural gaps, how naturally you’ve added clarification and advice; the terminology; the tone; and how you’ve renamed the paragraph titles so they make more sense -everything! You’ve done a fantastic job. (Recipe translation)
Usually I have to explain individually to each student the history of [British dish]. With you, it was not needed. (Article about British food)
My story
My fascination with languages started with my two own. I was intrigued from a young age by the differences between the Galician varieties spoken by my maternal and paternal families. This got super exciting at boarding school where I lived with people from all over Galicia, with incredibly different accents and dialects.
French was my first foreign language and I loved it from the word go. My first contact with a real French person came when my French teacher did an exchange with a native French counterpart and, after that, in language immersion courses in Nantes and Brittany at 17 and 18.
I started English from scratch at university where I obtained a degree in translation and interpreting (French major, English minor). In the summer holidays, I polished my languages working as an au pair in France and the UK.
My teaching career
After graduating in translation and interpreting, I returned to the UK to further polish my English, met my husband and taught Spanish for twenty years. But I always regretted a bit having abandoned my first call, which is why I really enjoyed advanced conversation classes where I could discuss the higher linguistic and cultural nuances while, in exchange, learning about British language and culture from my well-educated students.
My translation career
In 2016, the year of Roald Dahl’s centenary, whose children’s books I had discussed in my BA dissertation, I returned to translation and graduated with distinction in translation studies, English>Spanish, in 2018.
After a 3-month culinary translation course in 2019, I started blogging about culinary translation and sharing the knowledge acquired during my MA research and culinary translation course.
I now work in food translation helping promote products and brands. I also volunteer for organisations like Banana Link when I can, because they’re working for matters I deeply care about such as the rights of farm workers.
Let me join your journey and help you grow your business with my language and cultural skills and experience.
Next steps
Take a look at my specialisations.