I am a qualified secretarial linguist with 38 years of full-time, professional experience, working in English, French and Italian, mainly for inter-governmental agencies in Europe. English is my mother tongue (U.K. national) and I have lived and worked in Italy for the past 30 years, gaining fluency in Italian. As regards French, I hold a Stage IV diploma from the Scottish Business Education Council and a Certificate in Business French from the French Chamber of Commerce. I also lived in France for five years, working for the Council of Europe. I have been active as a freelance translator for several years now, during which time I have undertaken assignments on a wide variety of topics, including commercial, legal and marketing material and creative writing.