My Profile
Growing up in Franconia in the 1960s, I initially remained quite locally bound in the choice of my place of study, too. Thanks to the good connections of the Department of English and American Studies at Erlangen-Nuremberg University to partner universities in the EU, however, I had the opportunity to spend a longer study period as guest student at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, doing research for my final paper. This extended stay abroad among English native speakers proved very useful for my later professional choice of becoming a translator. After several job-related way stations in the Allgäu region and Franconia, I returned to Erlangen, where I have now been living and working as a translator for more than 25 years.
Education
- Studies of English, History and Political Sciences for Secondary Education
at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg - Exchange student at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, for two terms
- 1992: Preparing for and taking the Bavarian state examination for translators at the Institute for Foreign Languages and Area Studies, with specialisation in Arts and Humanities
- 1996: state examination as secondary school teacher
- 2000: public appointment by the President of Nuremberg-Fuerth Regional Court
as sworn translator for the English language
Job experience
Having passed my translator examination, I initially worked as part-time secretary in an Erlangen-based Medical Products company and as freelance technical translator. Owing to my extended teaching studies, however, I felt obliged to complete my education with the compulsory practical teacher training ("Referendariat"), which I passed in Nuremberg and Memmingen from 1994 to 1996. Afterwards I taught English, History, and Civic Studies for approx. 1.5 years to stand in for a grammar school teacher on long-term diability leave. When this job ended, I moved to Upper Franconia to teach English at a Waldorf School for a full year. I seized the opportunity to return Erlangen in summer 1999 when I applied for a vacancy as Technical Translator.
I got the job, learnt the trade as project manager and technical translator and the rest is history... This job was followed by a position in an engineering office that specialized as translation provider for the process & automation industry. Thus, I acquired lots of field experience before I went freelance in spring 2004. Since then, I have translated content from the fields of electrical engineering, plant engineering and medical technology, both into English and into German. As I have always been keen to continuously expand my knowledge in the text types and subject areas I translated, my expertise in legal translation grew accordingly and now also comprises real-estate purchase contracts, delivery and maintenance agreements, articles of incorporation and by-laws as well as general business terms and conditions and interpretation services during notarizations. Besides purely technical descriptions or online help texts for electrical planning software, I have also translated training material for electrical designers, sales presentations, magazine articles and manuals for a global player's Technical Marketing Department that featured highly specialized technical topics from the world of electrical engineering.
After another professional way station as salaried terminologist during the COVID period, I decided in 2022 to return to a strictly project-related work and focus more on translating and interpreting again.