About

Hello! My name is Gillian and I’m a professional French > English translator, copywriter, and British localisation expert.

What do you need to know about me?

I’ve always had a creative mind.

When I was a toddler, I wouldn’t go anywhere without Nigel, my pet ball of sticky tape. Until my dad accidentally vacuumed him up, then pretended he ‘found’ him again between his toes. 😒 I knew.

Born and raised in the UK as a monolingual.

Things started to change on that front in the mid-90s. Back then, my only car entertainment was a Walkman, and I’d bop along to my ‘Fun with French’ tape on repeat 🎧. Then, when we went to France on our first holiday abroad, my parents told me I could buy all the Tagada I wanted if I asked for them in French. So embarrassing, but it worked.

I’ve always been a fan of cultural exchanges.

One of my besties at secondary school was French. We took the opportunity to teach each other swear words and talk about whatever we wanted because no one understood us. Blissfully unaware teacher never told us off.

This country mouse went to the big city.

I went to Paris as part of my year abroad. It was the making of me. I made friends with a bunch of French art students and spent most Friday nights sitting on the Pont des Arts drinking warm wine from the bottle.

My immersive experience did wonders for my language and shrugging skills. Shame my final oral exam was on the ethics of embryo selection, and not how to see off a salesperson for trying to sell your mum a broken handbag in a fancy department store 👜.

I’ve been going with the flow ever since.

I went on to study for an MA in French Translation at the University of Bristol, and after graduating, got a job as a Translation Project Manager. After eight years, I decided I needed a change.

I went freelance in December 2021 and began offering French > English translations, and freelance project management services. Since then, my focus has been mainly on texts relating to marketing, health and fitness, food, luxury goods, sustainability, logistics and communications.

I’ve also diversified. First as a British localisation specialist. Then, word of mouth got around that I could write well. Clients started sending me copywriting and content writing jobs, and kept coming back.

I got to the glorious stage of struggling to fit everything in early 2024, so I waved goodbye to project management for the foreseeable and decided to focus on translation, localisation and writing projects.