What I Offer
I offer translations that are faithful to the meaning and style of the original and are written as native speaker texts. My extensive experience as a writer and an editor in English, combined with my almost native fluency in Dutch, gives me a great basis for translating from Dutch to English.
Translation Process
Translation is the process of taking a text written in one language and recreating it in another while maintaining tone and meaning. It is looking at the whole document and maintaining consistency throughout. Machine translation tools can translate words and documents but they cannot make it flow and ensure that meaning is maintained in the way that a good translator can.
The translation process means switching between the brain’s language centres, understanding the document first in Dutch, then using both centres simultaneously and finally switching off the Dutch centre and activating my English editor. More specifically, when I translate I:
- Read or skim the document and get a sense of the subject matter, content, writing style and any specific terms and see if there is any research needed.
- Systematically translate the document, usually a sentence at a time.
- Review the translation for accuracy and consistency and fix the errors I see.
- Take a break. This helps my brain fully switch languages and make sure I am not thinking about the Dutch text any more. I prefer overnight, but even a few hours can be enough.
- Edit the document as a native speaker editor, while being careful to be faithful to the Dutch original document.
Finally, as a Canadian, my native spelling mixing British and American, but this means I also am aware of how the three systems differ. I am happy to use whichever you prefer or whatever your style guide specifies. For Word documents I also retain the formatting of the delivered document.
Experience
I began working as a translator after I had lived in the Netherlands a few years and become fluent in Dutch to a level just below a native speaker. Projects have included:
- Websites, news articles, brochures, journal articles, communication toolkits and reports.
- Clients such as CREM, the Climate Neutral Group, Stichting HIER Klimaatbureau and RoyalHaskoningDHV.
My clients have been very satisfied with my translations.