English and its Varieties

I provide document translations from French, Spanish, and German into English. In addition, I offer English editing and proofreading services and often work with texts written by non-native English speakers.

English Background

My experience with English is extensive, as it is my native language. The sections below follow the progression of my experience with English in general and with various varieties of English.

Canadian English Roots

I am a native English speaker from British Columbia, Canada. I was brought up in a Canadian English-speaking environment and excelled at English in school, to the point that I was moved forward a year in that subject during high school. I have long had a love for language and grammar in general and the situation is no different when it comes to my native tongue; starting as early as high school, I used to proofread friends’ papers for them when they were unsure whether they had made spelling or grammar mistakes. I read constantly and was exposed to books by mostly Canadian, American, and British authors and to texts that were published in each of those varieties of English.

Bachelor’s Degree

At McGill University in Montreal, I wrote papers at a university level and further improved my writing skills and grammar knowledge. I also met and interacted with English speakers from other countries. My interest in the differences between the types of English we spoke was piqued when I took a linguistics course and studied as part of a group of students who represented different North American English regions: there was one person each from the western and eastern United States, and one each from western and eastern Canada. Our linguistics class used standard Canadian English as the chosen variety of English and comparing the differences in pronunciation and vocabulary between each of us in our study group made me only want to learn more about the different types of English in the world.

Master’s Degree and Thesis

This fascination with different varieties of the English language stayed with me when I started my master’s degree in Geneva and began to see how translations differed between the American, British, and Canadian students in my classes and to hear the different recommendations or comments made by my American and British instructors. When I had to choose the topic of my master’s thesis, I decided to follow this interest and chose to write about translating into Canadian English. The paper included an examination of Canadian English in comparison to American English and British English, noting both similarities and differences. Ultimately, it determined when it might be necessary to translate a text into the specific variety of English spoken in Canada, and how such translations would differ from translations into other Englishes due to the Canadian cultural identity.

Teaching English

After my master’s degree coursework was complete, I moved from Geneva, Switzerland to Cologne, Germany and taught English to adults on a freelance basis as I began to gain professional experience translating and editing. My three-year experience as an English teacher strengthened my English grammar skills even further and gave me more experience with different English varieties once again, as some of my students preferred to learn British English and others were more interested in American English. It also allowed me to gain extensive practice in correcting non-native speaker mistakes in English.

Further Exposure to Other Englishes

My next move to Colchester, UK and my stay there for about two and a half years gave me an immersive experience in British English and added even more to my understanding of the differences between it and American and Canadian English.

Now, as I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, I am exposed daily to New Zealand English and have already begun to note how it differs from the other varieties of English with which I am familiar. I also kept linguistic differences foremost in my mind on a recent trip to Australia and have started to determine how these varieties compare with each other as well.

Varieties of English

English is spoken in many countries around the world and, as has already been demonstrated above, each country or region can put its own stamp on the language over time, resulting in different varieties. These Englishes can have different rules in terms of spelling, style, vocabulary, and even grammar, and the speakers of these varieties have their own identities and cultures that may also need to be taken into account by people writing in or translating into these Englishes.

Canadian English is my native variety, but I have extensive experience with the American and British varieties as well and am also working on my understanding of New Zealand and Australian English.

English to English “Translation”

If you have written a text in one variety of English but would like to market your text to speakers of another English variety, I can provide you with an English to English “translation.” I consider this to be a form of editing, which is why mention of this service can also be found on the Editing and Proofreading page under the “Editing” heading.

This may seem like a strange practice, but a text on a topic where vocabulary can differ greatly between Englishes (e.g. vehicles, clothing, etc.) may not be understood by readers from different English-speaking areas. For instance, a Canadian English speaker likely won’t understand a text describing a wonderfully spacious car boot (instead of trunk), just as a British English speaker will likely get the wrong message from an advertisement for a gorgeous pair of pants (when the intended meaning is trousers, not underwear). It is also important to note that if you have a marketing text that is written in British English and directed towards a British audience, it will not appeal nearly as much to, say, an American audience. People become less interested when they are clearly not the target of a marketing campaign, and people in different countries also have different cultural identities and different expectations from marketers.

As explained above, changing a text from one variety of English to another involves more than simply changing the spell check settings in your word processing program. Depending on the Englishes involved and the subject of your text, the difficulty of this task can vary.

English Editing and Proofreading

To find out more about editing and proofreading in general and about the services that I offer, please see the Editing and Proofreading page.

Other Languages

As mentioned above, I translate from French to English, Spanish to English, and German to English.

For more information about my experience with the source languages mentioned above, please click on their respective links.