First part of this year’s edition of Summer Blog Series ”Translators Around The World”!
Hi, my name is Marianne van Amersfoort-Gerritsen and I live in Warnsveld, in the east of the Netherlands. I became a freelance translator English to Dutch in 2021 after I got my Bachelor’s when I was 37 years old. I started studying at 31 after I got fired, so I’m a late bloomer when it comes to this business.
A typical working day for me means starting the day with a long walk with my two dog tools, Till and Lizzy. Then we’ll go upstairs to my office and I usually work 2 to 3 hours. After that it’s time for a walk and lunch. Then I’ll work for a couple of hours, depending on my workload and deadlines. I usually work 4 to 6 hours per day. My main work is translating cookbooks and subtitling series and documentaries.
Working from home can be lonely at times, and I’m very happy that I can meet up with other translators sometimes in Utrecht. We know each other through the Facebook page Vertalerskoffiehoek, and although I’m not always going, it’s really nice to have something like that. Another great community is the BP community/family. BP is an annual conference in Europe, and it’s always a fun week filled with presentations, dinners, drinks and meeting amazing people.
In my free time, I like to walk the dogs, chill with my family, mountainbike and meet up with friends.
AI has greatly influenced our profession, and in many ways, not in a great way. It has its benefits when it comes to speeding up technical stuff, but many people think AI can replace the human touch of a translator. And there’s no way a computer can build the bridges we build as translators. I really hope that the AI bubble will burst, but I’m not sure.
I really love our profession, the culinary translations I get to do, and even travel the world as a freelance translator. Let’s make sure the human touch will stay the most important thing people want when it comes to translation.
Marianne van Amersfoort-Gerritsen
Translator
The writer is a Dutch translator specializing in cookbook translations and subtitling from English into her mother tongue.
Instagram: translating.foodie
