McKay Translations

Listening between the lines

British translator based in Switzerland

Chinese, French, and German into English

Your English voice in the fields of the arts & humanities and international cooperation. Safeguarding the authenticity of your message against the quirks, bugs, and vagaries of machine translation.

Communication is key to the success of your message.

AI is not the enemy, but we are in an age that is seeing a proliferation of AI-generated translations – an age in which words are simply substituted between languages, but without a holistic understanding of the text.

The need is greater than ever for professional translators who truly listen to your concerns, who understand the nuances of tone, register, subtext and cultural context, and who can ensure that these are conveyed appropriately.

Together we can work on:

Translation & localisation

Simplified Chinese to English

Traditional Chinese to English

Swiss French to English

Swiss German to English

Bilingual revision

Monolingual review

Get in touch

“Our assistant senior editor in charge of testing considers Matthew to be one of Watching America’s “elite team,” and I could not agree more. Matthew has consistently produced sophisticated translations that add immensely to our homepage. He is reliable in meeting translation deadlines and provides immediate and enlightening responses to requests for clarification on the rare occasions editors need his help. I believe Matthew would be an asset to any group or individual that enlists his skills, as he is to Watching America.”

Helaine Schweitzer,

Senior Editor, Watching America

“Matthew impressed us not just with his language skills, but also with his availability and his conscientiousness in terms of contextual research. We'd like to extend our warmest thanks to Matthew for his service and professionalism, and can recommend his services without hesitation!”

Cyrille Heimo,

Owner, Chalet La Maya

“I have had the pleasure of working with Matthew on some projects and I can confidently say that he is an exceptional linguist. Not only is he knowledgeable and fluent in both English and Chinese, but he is always responsible for his work. In addition, Matthew is a very reliable, trustworthy, and helpful person, and is always on time with his work. His excellent qualities make him a valuable asset to any team, so I highly recommend Matthew for any linguistic projects.”

Lotty Huang,

Project Manager, Clearly Local