I grew up in the US as a native speaker of US English and a heritage speaker of German. I have US and Italian citizenship. I lived in Germany for several years in high school and college, majoring in German and linguistics. I received an MA in Germanic linguistics from University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a 4.00 GPA. I studied German, Dutch, Frisian, Afrikaans, the Scandinavian languages, and the ancient Germanic languages (e.g., Old English, Gothic, Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old High German). I also have an MBA and have worked in the IT field (focusing on both finance and housing industries) for many years. I have worked as a freelance translator most of my adult life, mainly focusing on DE > EN, but have also done work in NL > EN, FY > EN, and PDC > EN. I currently live in the Netherlands, but will be moving back to the US by the end of 2019.