Begoña Romero

                                                                        Begoña Romero García
                                                                                                    Translator & Interpreter

                                                                                                      Skype: brgtranslator    
                                                                                         E-mail: brgtranslator@gmail.com
                                                                                                Phone: +44(0)7873442000                                                                   

                                                                                   URL: http://www.proz.com/translator/127093        

I am a qualified translator and interpreter and was awarded a First Class degree after a four-year course at Universidade de Vigo (Spain). I received an Erasmus grant from the European Union and did the third year of my degree at the Copenhagen Business School (Denmark).

I have always had a passion for reading, a special flare for languages and writing, and my long-time dream was to move to the United Kingdom, so soon after graduation I decided to travel to Scotland, where I have now settled in.

I have extensive experience in the field obtained during my academic years, as I translated documents of a varied nature (general, scientific, business, culinary, technical, tourism...) targeted at diverse hypothetical clients with realistic deadlines.

I also have experience in voluntary translation work and I am currently translating documents (English>Spanish) for registered charities such as Global Voices Online, Latin American Foundation for the Future and International Children's Digital Library. For this task, I have taught myself how to use CAT tools  (WordFast, OmegaT) and other software such as WordPress, basic Photoshop and dotSUB. I am constantly learning how to use new tools and developing my language skills further.

LANGUAGES:
•    English>Spanish/Galician
•    French>Spanish (General Translation only)
•    Galician>Spanish
•    Spanish>Galician

QUALIFICATIONS:

•    MA (Hons) in Translation and Interpreting studies, First Class. Universidade de Vigo, 1998-2002.

•    Dissertation (terminology work and glossary): "Instants Gourmands: an Approach to Terminology Work through Gastronomy",         Universidade de Vigo,2003-2004.
•    Course on Volunteering and the Third Sector, Universidade de Vigo, 2003.
•    Seminar on Terminology hosted by Prof. Heribert Picht, Copenhagen, 2001.
•    EU Erasmus student, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, 2000-2001.
•    Course on dubbing and subtitling hosted by the prestigious translator Xose Castro Roig, Universidade de Vigo, 1998.
•    Special Award in Humanities Studies, Fernando Esquío High School, 1998.

MODULES STUDIED:

English, French, Danish, Spanish and Galician usage; Business English; IT Skills for Translators; Documentation and Research; Terminology; practice of Legal, Business, Scientific and Technical Translation; Consecutive and Simultaneous interpreting; Linguistics and Sociolinguistics; International Negotiations; Civil Law; Basic Economics; Institutions and History of the EU amongst others.

WORK EXPERIENCE:

March 2009 – present    Translator (volunteer)           Several  Registered Charities   Work from home

I have recently started taking voluntary translation work again (English into Spanish/Galician) for registered charities (e.g. International Children's Digital Library, Global Voices Online, Latin American Foundation for the Future). The text I translate range from children’s literature to blog posts on current affairs (culture, politics, conflicts, economic development, international relations...) and press releases amongst others.
In addition to this, I collaborate with former colleague translators on an occasional basis and I translate insurance-related documents such as police reports or medical letters from Spanish/French/Portuguese into English when required by my employer.

Nov 2007 -present          Travel Claims Handler                Ace European Group                 Glasgow

I was invited for an interview following my performance in the Administration department and I am authorised to deal with travel claims under GBP 1,000 on my own and GBP 5,000 supervised. This involves issuing correspondence and dealing with brokers and claimants on the phone (all in English) making sure that deadlines and customers expectations are met at all times. My soft skills and professionalism have been highlighted by my employer on multiple occasions. I also supervise a team of three that deals with the Sarbanes-Oxley propriety reports. I am responsible for allocating, reviewing and completing the reports before they are passed on  to the Finance Department.

Sept 2006-Nov 2007  Operational Support Administrator          ACE European Group            Glasgow

I was responsible for indexing a high volume of documents for underwriters and claim handlers, and for producing acknowledgement letters. It required high attention to detail and accurate input of information, as well as the ability to concentrate on the same task for a long period of time.

January 2005 - June 2006    Au Pair                                             Different families               Lanarkshire
    
This career break offered me the opportunity to get to know the Scottish way of life and culture from the inside and to polish my English skills.

Nov 2004                Conference Interpreter                                     Nortempo S.L.                    Compostela

I was headhunted to work as an interpreter at the International Seminar for the Prevention of Violence in Sport (Santiago, November 2004). The speakers included registered charities, journalists, retired footballers, European Commissioners and Spanish Olympic champions amongst others. This was a Spanish into English assignment.


2002-2003                 Translator (volunteer)         Traductores sen Fronteiras              Univ. de Vigo

Following the Prestige oil spill in the North of Spain in 2002, a special division of Translators without Borders was created to help with the translation of documents related to the ecological disaster. I was responsible for the translation of legal, economic, scientific documents and newspaper articles both in Spanish and English. Although the post was voluntary, I was often required to work to tight deadlines and the translation problems I faced were the same I would have faced in a remunerated role.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Hobbies & interests: Contemporary Spanish literature, writing, languages, gastronomy, rock music, films, travel, antiques, sociology, art, internet, computer games (mainly puzzles and MMORPGs),third sector.

Career break:  Diagnosed with a serious illness in January 2009 but currently able to work. Car owner, provisional driving licence, planning to take driving lessons in a very near future.

Willing to do translation tests and also interested in internships (paid or unpaid).

Hardware, software and tools: AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core Mobile RM-72, RAM 4.00GB, 288GB, DVD burner, Xerox flatbed scanner, Casio Exilim digital camera, broadband Internet connection, Windows Vista Home Premium, MS Office 2007, OpenOffice.org 3.1, IBM Lotus Symphony 1.3, OmegaT, WordFast (trial version), PDFCreator, Adobe Photoshop 7.0, increasing selection of monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, glossaries, style manuals and grammars.

• Adobe Acrobat
• PowerPoint
• Wordfast
• MS Office Professional 2007
  OpenOffice Suite 3.0.1
  OmegaT (currently learning)
  Adobe Photoshop (currently learning)