Native in English, near-native in Russian. No translation degree, but I've got a lifetime of bicultural background and I've been translating professionally since 1999. Currently living in California. So, what kind of Russian am I, anyway? The White émigré variety, Manchurian subset. Both sets of grandparents left Russia in 1922; my parents grew up in the large Russian diaspora communities of Harbin and Mukden (Shenyang) before the Chinese Revolution sent them refugeeing all over again. Their native language was Russian - which became my first language in early childhood, and the language we always spoke at home. So I've been bilingual and bicultural all my life. Born in California, raised and educated in Australia. Found equal pleasure in reading Dr. Seuss and Kornei Chukovsky, Pushkin and Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson and Marina Tsvetaeva. I became a librarian, and then I went and lived in provincial Russia for a good number of years as an adult, taking my source language skills to a higher level through immersion. Also catching up on Soviet-era pop culture... so now I can understand Stierlitz jokes and compare "Nu, pogodi!" with Coyote-Road Runner dynamics. I'm happy to say that I can now read Russian as fast and as well as I read English. Though I'll probably never be able to write in Russian without some errors, I can live with that, since I only translate one way: into English. Over the years, I've absorbed enough Russian culture, history, and general knowledge to give my translation exceptional depth and subtlety. For example, I can pick up cultural allusions and nuances in a Russian op-ed, maintaining its tone and style as I transform it into English. I've translated a couple of novels and I'm looking for more fiction work, since my language skills are now up to the challenge of literary translation. Along the way, I've also translated blog posts, web content, general business documents, travel brochures, press releases, executive speeches, and articles in the field of history and other social sciences. What's more, I have proofread (corrected or copy-edited) many, many texts translated into English by native speakers of Russian - and I'm always open to offering constructive criticism or exchanging experience.