Annette was born into a multicultural family in which various languages were spoken. Annette's father, who was born in Hungary to Polish / Russian parents, spoke eight languages fluently. Annette's mother, who was also born in Hungary to Austrian / Hungarian parents, speaks five.

As a child, Annette's parents communicated with her in French, her nanny talked to her in Spanish and her teachers in English, at the Escuela Americana she attended for eight years in San Salvador, El Salvador, her birth country.

Thus, both English and Spanish became a natural part of Annette's environment and upbringing. When the civil war broke out in El Salvador, they moved to Panama. There, Annette graduated from a high school where Spanish, English and Hebrew were taught.

Annette has always excelled in languages (especially in grammar), and is passionate about literature and writing. She is an inborn communicator and could not imagine life without the gift of expression. Upon graduating, she moved to France and shortly afterwards to Israel. In Israel, she met students from all over Latin America who exposed her to a wide range of idioms.

It was in Israel where she first discovered, through someone else's eyes, that perhaps she did have a talent for translation and interpretation. She was sharing a poem that she had written in Spanish but reading it in English to a professor. He thought she was reading it in English, but she was actually interpreting it simultaneously. He later hired her in 1992 and 1994 to work for him as a simultaneous interpreter at a two-week conference in Israel on educational psychology.

The desire to further her studies took her to the United States, where she attended the University of Texas at Austin and specialized in Journalism with a minor in writing, another one of her passions.

Annette's professional career as a translator officially began in Austin, Texas, when she was hired full time by the Texas Education Agency as a project assistant. She accumulated the most diverse experience in the fields of publishing and translation, and approached all tasks with equal commitment: reviewing translations, translating multiple documents, editing, proofreading, copywriting, and discovering the most extensive array of grammar books and dictionaries. One usage dictionary in particular became her favorite consulting tool so much so that she was teasingly nicknamed "doctora" Moliner by her coworkers (María Moliner is the author of Diccionario de uso del español). As part of Annette's ongoing education, she studied under a renowned Argentinian translator, Leandro Wolfson. The intensive workshop by correspondence emphasized Spanish translation and revision.

The world of translation and its related fields encompasses everything Annette loves doing. While translating, Annette studies language and the written word, she researches both grammar and content when needed, she envision the writer's voice and she ensures there are no biases in the final product.

Thus, during twenty years of increasingly responsible and rich experience as an English>Spanish translator, translation reviewer, Spanish editor, proofreader, and journalist, Annette has successfully fused my talent for languages with a passion for writing and research. She believes her unique contribution to undertaken projects is based on the following:

A combination of relevant abilities and attributes

Highly skilled at capturing and analyzing complex concepts and nuances for distinct audiences, while elegantly respecting the writer´s voice
Culturally sensitive due to her own multicultural upbringing, and an early and ongoing exposure to diverse cultures and countries
Extremely systematic and conscientious
A nearly native command of the English language

Received a well-rounded education in English from an early age and eventually minored in English literature
Lived in Canada for eight years and in the United States for ten years, where she studied translation, obtained an MA in Journalism, and worked as a translator, editor, and writer
Native expertise in Spanish and Latin American culture

Born in El Salvador and raised in Panama
Experienced as a Spanish grammar consultant
Familiar with Latin American and Peninsular colloquialisms acquired through travel and living abroad
She shares Goodman´s philosophy regarding translation:

"To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which comes from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one's own style and creatively adjust this to one´s author."

—Paul Goodman