About me | Kornelia Robertson

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My name is Kornelia, but a lot of people call me Nellie.

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I’m lucky to have spent most of my time studying from the time I started first grade until I finished university in 2006, with part-time and summer jobs in the field of education starting in high school.

Since I left university, I have been busy with translation, editing, writing, more education, some unrelated employment, volunteering, and continued learning. The pie charts below show the current and planned proportions of these aspects of my work life. The graph under the pie charts gives data about the past twenty or so years, and it is all explained in more detail on the bottom of the page.

If you prefer a more traditional CV, you can download it from here.

Current work

Work planned for the near future

Translation, editing and writing takes up about a third of my time. I foresee the hours spent on translation further decreasing, with editing and writing becoming even more important as I move forward, with the total remaining about the same.
In education, I had spent a lot of my time homeschooling my kids in the past decade, but they need me less now. At the same time, I’d like to start working more with others — either helping kids with their learning, or helping parents with their kids. I had completed a Family Support Specialist and Child Psychology Consultant training in 2021 to refresh my psychology studies, and I’d like to become a Certified Parent Educator before the end of this year.
I've been employed, part-time, at Blue Heron Orchard and at the Canton Public Library, and if everything goes as planned, these relationships will continue whenever I’m in the US, and when in Hungary, I can focus more on writing and education.

I had built up my translation business with a background as a Certified Social Sciences Translator (2006) in the EN<>HU language combination. Initially, with an MA in Japanese linguistics, I worked as an interpreter and translator for Japanese companies in Hungary and Japan. I also did translations from Japanese to English for several years after moving to the US, but now I work almost exclusively between Hungarian and English.

My proz.com profile has more information about my translation work.

Once I had a steady group of clients I worked with on translation projects, I also started receiving more and more requests for proofreading and editing assignments in both English and Hungarian. My favorite work is linguistic validation, where we work with the end client to arrive at a translation that is not only accurate, but fits into the target culture in tone and style.

Over the years, I also took on paid writing assignments and I have been teaching kids how to write. For these reasons, the time I spend writing/editing is now surpassing the time I spend on translation.

After my assignments with Suzuki and BridgeStone ended and I moved to the US, I was first employed by the YMCA in different capacities. Then came a move west and a chance encounter with Dan at Blue Heron Orchard. I started helping out on his family farm, with the kids simply tagging along at first and becoming very adept at completing some tasks later.

Meanwhile, the translation business was growing and paid the bills. In this freelancer capacity, I enjoy being my own boss and working from home (usually after the kids go to bed).

I took a job as a Library Assistant in 2022, so there are now times when I leave home to go to work, without the kids in tow. This was a big change in our family, my son even remarked how proud he was, for I finally had “a real job.” I'm curious to see what kind of jobs he will have once he grows up!

My university studies prepared me for teaching high school Japanese and Psychology. Since I always lived in remote locations (Upstate NY, outside of Detroit, MI, rural Missouri), I never had the chance to teach these subjects.

Instead, I was a private instructor and substitute teacher during the academic year, and I was involved in outdoor education (horses, lifeguarding, canoeing, program management, etc.) during the summers.

From around 2011, my focus turned to homeschooling my two young kids. I earned my license as a cognitive trainer and reading instructor, and helped my own kids and others with their memory, attention, and reading skills.

There was a time when education took up about half of my available time, but my kids are older now and their learning is tied to the Hungarian school system (in-person for part of the time, and remotely when we’re in the US), so I spend less time with them, as the graph shows.

Best place to find me:

in Canton, Missouri, USA,
in Székesfehérvár, Hungary, or

some place in between.

Best way to reach me:

through the website contact form

Best reasons to send me a message:

if you'd like something translated to Hungarian
if you need help with your writing
if you had a miserable day with your child
if you had an amazing day and just want to share

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