Our Professional Translators

Rafael has been a translator and proofreader for 28 years. A linguist with an MA in General and Applied Linguistics from Sorbonne University, he has studied, worked, and lived in the US (3 years), in two French-speaking countries (12 years), and in three Spanish-speaking ones (50 years). He is thoroughly capable of grasping the contextual, semantic, and expressive meaning of the source language and conveying an idiomatic, precise, and stylish message in Spanish. He has spent most of his professional life (30 years) in Mexico and is married to a Mexican writer.

Besides being a full-fledged member of our network of professional translators, Rafael also teaches Translation and Linguistics. He has worked at various universities in Mexico, including the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Ibero-American University, the Centre for Studies in Applied Linguistics, and the Institute of Interpreters and Translators. At present, he is a member of the faculty for the MA in Translation and Interpretation at Anáhuac University.

His knowledge of standard Spanish has allowed him to work for several publishing houses, such as Siglo XXI Editores, National Geographic, Reader’s Digest, and Harper’s Bazaar, where it is imperative to produce translations adapted to a large readership.

Rafael was Assistant Director of Translation at the Mexican National Banking Commission for three years and, as a result, specialised in the areas of finance, banking, and accounting.

Andy was born in the south of London in 1964 and took an interest in foreign languages at an early age. He studied Modern Languages (French and Spanish) at Bristol Polytechnic and, immediately after graduation, set off to embark on a career in TEFL in the heart of Castile, where he lived and worked for two years. Following that, for a further two years, he taught English in Lisbon for major companies.

Finally, in 1991, he went to Tarragona, Catalonia, with the idea of spending just one year there…and still lives there to this day.

As a result, he is fluent in Catalan and Spanish and well versed in Portuguese and French, and through teaching lawyers, doctors, business people, customs agents, psychologists, civil servants, chemical plant managers, and more, he has gained an insight into a multitude of fields and is thus able to translate an extremely wide variety of texts. Since he moved to Tarragona, he has gradually done less teaching and more translation, becoming a freelancer in 1995.

In his free time, Andy enjoys bird watching, trips to the country, gastronomy, and building “castells” or human towers with the Colla Jove Xiquets de Tarragona  — they have to be seen to be believed!

Eva Maria was born in Saarbrücken, Germany, close to the border with France and Luxembourg, in 1979. She studied translation and interpreting at the Saarland University from 1998 until 2003 and graduated as a fully certified translator for French, English, and Spanish.

She supplemented her studies with an MA in French and English conference interpreting at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz (Germersheim). After several stays abroad, including in London, Paris, and Barcelona, Eva selected Saarbrücken as her professional home.

Though based in Saarbrücken, Eva travels to carry out her interpreting assignments, which mostly take place in the region. She was first contacted for translation projects for BeTranslated in 2007, and since then has worked as one of our professional translators with a focus mainly in the fields of marketing, law, IT, tourism, and politics.

Anna-Maria has been a freelance translator since 1997, after receiving a Diploma in Translation from the Institute of Linguists, London. When she is not at the computer, you can find her reading on the beach, browsing travel photo books, or wine tasting, and Anna-Maria will tell you: “I’m working… collecting words!”

This has always been the inspiration at the heart of her work: to connect the craft and enthusiasm for word-smithery with expanding her horizons in other fascinating fields like tourism, psychology, ontology, and children’s literature.

The result is evident in her translations for the Hilton, Marriott, and Kempinski Hotels, TAG Heuer, Rolex, Gallo Wines, Howard Park Winery, and Parragon Publishing. Imagine how proud she was to find her translation of a children’s Bible was no. 1 on the Weltbild publishing group’s list of bestselling religious books in July – ahead of the Pope’s memoirs!

She regularly translates from English and French to German and occasionally from Spanish to German.