My name is Roderick Chuck and I am a retired industrial chemist and have been living in Switzerland since 1975. I was born in Hertfordshire, England. After leaving school I studied chemistry at London University, where I graduated in 1963. Three years later I was awarded a PhD in NMR studies and then worked as a post doctoral fellow in Basle Switzerland and Boulder Colorado in the USA. Both of these locations mirrored my interest in mountaineering and rock climbing. In Basle I had my first daily contact with a language other than English, although Baseldytch was a bit of a challenge, especially as my work and mountaineering colleagues all spoke excellent English and grabbed every opportunity to practice on me!

In America I decided the challenges in industry were more exciting for me than at university, and I moved back to the UK as an analytical and research and development chemist in a synthetic fibres company. A few years later I was again offered the opportunity of working in Switzerland, where I could work as a development chemist in the canton of Valais. This also gave me the chance of climbing in the Alps and on local rock outcrops.

At the same time I started teaching English as a foreign language and began with in-house translating. Learning both standard (high) German and local dialects was aided enormously by my Swiss wife, Barbara, who had studied French, German and English at the University of Fribourg, and also by my colleagues at work, where the lingua franca was some variation on German (Hochdeutsch, Baseldytch, Bärndütsch und Wallisertiitsch). I describe my German accent/dialect as Swinglish!

During the thirty or so years as a part-time translator and teacher, I acquired considerable experience in translating scientific, technical and business reports, letters and documents.

On several occasions I have been asked to act as an interpreter in local court cases and for contracts in lawyer's chambers, although this puts quite a strain on my capabilities!

After going into retirement at the end of 2006, I decided with my son Adrian to set up a small translating firm Chucktrans, specialising in technical, scientific and business translations. This has proved to be more successful than we thought and is a lot of fun!