Christmas is an important period of the year for us. At the beginning of December our office displays a Christmas tree, Nativity scenes, stars and colorful lights. In the last week of the month we usually leave Amsterdam to spend some time with our families and friends in Spain. Over the years we have shared our Christmas spirit with our clients and collaborators and have written about this on our blog.

In 2016 Marrit van Natten created a watercolor painting of our office building, while 2015 was the year of our instrumental cover of Silent Night. In 2014 we sent the highest quality Jamón Serrano all over the globe, including Japan, and in 2013 we made handcrafted notepads out of recycled materials. 2011 was the first time we used Belgian chocolate in our Bluebird-merchandised Belgian Pralines.

This year Belgian chocolate has again been the main ingredient in our gift. We filled these cute lab test tubes with authentic Callebaut dark chocolate powder. Our sweetest wishes for the New Year!

LinkedIn gave us a pleasant surprise a few days ago: I was suddenly getting personal messages and comments on our profile because LinkedIn had posted that it had been exactly 10 years since Bluebird was born. And it has indeed been 10 years since I first registered the business at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, after two years working as an in-house translator in the Netherlands.

Since then our team has grown along with our experience, and so has our portfolio. All this growth has also allowed us to fulfill our dream of sharing our beautiful office space in Amsterdam city center and transforming it into a hub for local translators working in various languages.

Thanks for all the anniversary wishes and for your trust in our daily work.

This is the Christmas card that we've sent this year to our clients, collaborators, family, and friends. The original design, based on our (UNESCO-protected) office building, was done in aquarelle by Rotterdam-based artist Marrit van Natten. You can check out her beautiful artwork at her website.

Our best and most sincere wishes from the heart of the Jordaan, Amsterdam, where Bluebird keeps growing along with the community of professional translators with whom we share our work space.

Actually, in 2017 we'll have to celebrate our 5th anniversary since Bluebird Translations moved to this office. Stay tuned to this blog for more info on the best summer BBQ in town :)

And comes back..! From mid-July to mid-August, I was using by French skills by volunteering in a community of nuns belonging to Spanish Congregation Religiosas de San José de Gerona.

With 35 people living there currently, their community in Guitarama is the largest in the country. It’s a training community where they receive and instruct nuns-to-be.

The purpose of my visit was to take part in the training by giving two workshops, one on computing and another on guided reading of The Little Prince. I also served as interpreter for other workshops given by a Spanish-speaking instructor.

The experience was quite complete. It included a whole array of emotions ranging from joy to sorrow, but above all it included kindness. Not a single moment passed when I didn’t feel at home.

Here’s a link to the blog (in Spanish) that we wrote during our trip.

Our office has always had a guitar, but the cello only became part of the team three months ago, when María first started learning. This video is the result of a few hours we managed to steal from the office clock. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed shooting it. (Thanks to Mr Frank and StreamMyEvent for the logistics!)

Merry Christmas and all the best for 2016!

P.S.: Our new "slogan" is right at the end of the video ;)

A few months back, I interviewed Josep Condal from ApSIC on the new commercial version of Xbench for the ITI Bulletin, As a follow-up to that, I recently had the opportunity to exchange some words with Michael Farrell, the translator behind IntelliWebSearch. We talked about the origins of his beloved tool and the innovative features of the new version 5.

PDF version

If you are a translator based in Amsterdam or you know any fellow translator based here, you might find our set-up interesting or want to let others know about it, so please feel free to spread the word about our project. We are a small international community of translators (11 at the moment) sharing a beautiful office space (the only coworking space for translators in the Netherlands!) strategically located in the Jordaan, right between the Haarlemmerdijk and the Brouwersgracht, only a 10/15-minute walk from Central Station. The office is located on the commercial ground floor of an amazing 17th-century building that houses an art gallery and other office spaces on every floor.

We have 1 full-time desk available at the moment.

Featuring:
- Your own big desk
- 24/7 access
- In-room meeting table
- Access to an independent meeting room upstairs
- A work environment, which is concentration- and client-friendly at the same time
- Personal storage space
- High-speed Internet 300MB download - 40MB upload (wired and wireless)
- Projector & Chromecast
- Kitchen
- Two multifunction printers
- Bathroom with shower
- Cleaning service
- And, last but not least, a helpful knowledge-sharing community of experienced, savvy translators around you!

The rent for the workstation involves a deposit and a flexible agreement. Drop us a line at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  if you are interested.

MITI is a valuable mark of professional recognition in the translation industry worldwide –especially in Europe and the UK.

While I was travelling in Russia during my summer holidays in July, I received some good news from the prestigious UK-based Institute of Translation and Interpretation: I've become a Qualified Member of the Institute.

I was an ITI associate member for the last 6 years, during which I actively participated in ITI events, such as the last bi-annual conference in London, and writing for the bi-monthly ITI Bulletin. Although I already met the MITI professional requirements (related to qualifications, experience, and professional references) long before I actually did it, I decided to send my application late last year. In May, I sat the exam for one of my main fields of specialization (Business) and as of this summer I'm officially a Qualified Member of the Association. Now these two titles are proudly hanging next to our Translation & Interpreting MA Degree Diplomas on the walls of our beloved Jordaan office.

The webinar on Xbench that I conducted a few weeks ago is still being mentioned on Twitter and other social media sites. I am highly satisfied with the final result as I managed to present the program in a very practical way, both for newcomers and for users with some experience. This was exactly the approach I was looking for. In addition, I have received valuable messages from listeners who straight after the webinar started using Xbench on a daily basis and I guess I could not have hoped for a better result than that.

Following are some tweets and some of the most positive and complete testimonials received in our mailbox:

(As the webinar was delivered in Spanish, the messages were tweeted in Spanish. Most likely, the next edition of the same webninar will be held in English.)

Gracias por el webinario tan interesante y completo que has presentado. No conocía el funcionamiento del programa, pero veo que es una herramienta relativamente sencilla y muy útil para el traductor. Se nota que eres un gran conocedor del mismo y, lo que es más importante, sabes transmitir tus conocimientos de forma clara y sencilla. Además has sabido aprovechar muy bien el tiempo disponible para darnos muchísima información. Si me preguntaran, lo recomendaría totalmente.

María Eugenia Santa Coloma, Traducciones Vaikava S.L.

Two years after the Belgian pralines and one after the well-liked handcrafted recycled blocs, our clients, friends and collaborators have recently received this succulent Christmas gift: Jamón Ibérico from the town Jabugo, which is the most popular Protected Designation of Origin in Spain.

As we explained in the card included in each parcel, at Bluebird Translations we’ve been lucky enough to have a new neighbour at walking distance from our office in Amsterdam: Ibericus, a delicatessen concept store specialising in Spanish jamón serrano produced solely from the Iberian breed (pata negra). As I've been doing since it opened, it’s possible to buy full legs and request one of the specialist jamoneros to cut it all "a cuchillo" (with a slicing knife).

By the way, we do know that some of our collaborators are veggies, but I'm quite sure that they have found someone special to delight at Christmas time with our selected Ibérico ;)

Selecting the best legs...

Jamonero in action.

Ready to be enjoyed all over the world!