Gillian Morris

I started off life as a typical English monolingual. Then one day, my mum bought me a ‘Fun with French’ cassette for my Walkman. I listened to it on repeat. When I wasn’t listening to it, I usually had my nose in a book.

In an attempt to encourage my emerging language abilities, we went on our first holiday abroad to rural France. The village shop had a huge jar of Tagada sweets. My parents told me I could buy as many as I wanted, but there was a catch. I had to ask in French.

After the initial mortification, it got easier as the holiday went on. Mainly because the lovely French knew exactly what I was going to ask for.

Since that moment, I actively sought out cultural exchanges.

In secondary school, I made a French friend. We quickly realised that if we spoke French during art class, we could talk about pretty much anything we wanted to. This, and A-levels, gave me the perfect foundation for a degree in French at the University of Exeter.

I lived and worked in Paris during my year abroad. The biggest learning curve wasn’t in the office; it was making friends with a group of very cool art students and spending Friday evenings sitting on the Pont des Arts, chatting over bottles of warm wine. My French (and shrugging skills) improved dramatically.

During that internship, I helped oversee the translation of the company’s annual report and realised I’d found a firm interest. After graduating, I completed an MA in French Translation at the University of Bristol while working in retail. As soon as I handed in my dissertation, I joined a translation agency as a Translation Project Manager, where I spent the next eight years delivering multilingual projects for clients across a wide range of sectors.

In late 2022, I went freelance. At first, I offered French to English translation and project management, before specialising in British localisation and copywriting. Today I work with SMEs and global teams, helping them produce natural, engaging content for UK audiences.