Christopher P Side
MA (Translation and Linguistics)
BA (Hons) European Studies (German with Russian) (read my CV here)
Chris comes from an English-German background. Bilingual in English and German, he is also conversant in Spanish, French and Malay. His mother's side of the family provided the German language and culture, his father's an interest in architecture and construction.
Originally trained as a teacher of English as a foreign language, Chris moved to Singapore where he spent a busy 10 years, working initially for the British Council, and then for Singapore Airlines as the specialist Communication Skills Trainer for their 6,000 cabin crew members. While at the airline he project managed the publication of inflight announcement texts in no fewer than 9 languages, authoring the English version, and typesetting the texts in German, French, Malay, Indonesian and Hindi (both Devnagari and Latin script editions.) He also inaugurated German and French language training programmes for the cabin crew.
His love of languages led him back to the UK where he graduated with distinction in an MA (Translation and Linguistics) from the University of Westminster.
He then decided to strike out on his own and make the most of his language and IT/IS skills by setting up his own freelance translation company. Thirteen years later, the business is still going strong, with happy customers in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.
In his spare time, Chris enjoys keeping in touch with his various languages and walking with his whippets on the beaches of West Norfolk.