My translation skills were developed at the BBC World Service in London, where I worked for many years for the Brazilian Section.

Apart from the programmes we wrote ourselves, there were many others produced in English by other departments of the BBC and their script had to be translated into Brazilian Portuguese before being recorded and broadcast by our section. These included news items, documentaries and special features, on different subjects and strands.

The translation had to be done at a very fast pace because of the numerous deadlines for broadcast and it had to be done at the very high standard demanded by the BBC. For this reason, we were also the first port of call for many translation agencies in London – they had the guarantee that, apart from delivering the translations on time, we were trained to do it at a very high level.

And this translation experience has been very helpful on all the other jobs I took while still living in London (I was there for just over 20 years) , and also on my return to Brazil in 2006 - although mostly for in-house jobs that didn't leave much time and/or energy left for freelancing.

I have recently changed jobs and that has allowed me to start freelancing again. My objective is to become a full time translator in the very near future.