I am 100% English speaker, my first career was as a Legal Assistant for a technology company in Cambridge, UK. I was a Graduate member of the Institute of Legal Executives and worked mostly on the drafting of Non-Disclosure Agreements until we relocated to the UAE.

Later, while living in Dubai and travelling around the Gulf Region, I taught myself Modern Standard Arabic using the Al Kitaab study guides in order to help my son with his homework and communicate a little with the native speakers around me.  Arabic is a very beautiful language and so I soon became hooked on learning both the language and about the culture and heritage of the Gulf region, making many friends along the way.  I also studied at the Arabic Language Center in Dubai where I learned to communicate effectively in Levantine Arabic using the Maliha Wehbe method of teaching for both business and colloquial Arabic.

My strengths lie in commitment, hard work, accuracy and a passion for the Arabic language and Arab culture.  These strengths standing me in good stead when I enrolled on the MA Translation Studies program run by the University of Portsmouth, from which I recently graduated with a Merit award.  I thoroughly enjoyed both the theory and practice elements of the program, especially the summer project to translate into Arabic an Emergency Response Plan for a helicopter aviation company.  The program provided opportunities also to translate medical, scientific, business, sport and technical texts.  I do, however, anticipate that my target language will be English, as I start out in my new career as a translator.

I am looking forward to gaining experience as an Arabic to English translator in a wide range of general areas to gain as much experience as possible.  In order to do this, I have also registered with Translators Without Boarders (TWB) and hope to claim tasks and use my language skills in a constructive way to benefit others while gaining valuable experience myself.