About Valérie Marzac

 If you don't feel like reading this section, skip it, I promise I won't mind! This is my background, my world, my hopes. But more importantly, the aim of this blog entitled Bilingual Pen is to reach out to a bilingual audience while providing tips for translators, reading for readers, free courses for learners, serious topics and a bit of fun as well!

Valerie Marzac is a Bilingual Postgraduate Translator, a Published Writer in English and French and a Subtitler and Voice-over Actress with 27 years of experience. Born in France to English professors who taught her English almost from birth (as most teachers do and she's thankful for it!), Val originally became an English Teacher. She started writing from as far as she can remember, dreaming of publishing books from her childhood desk and pen, oblivious to the fact that soon computers would be taking over. 

And what a joy it was when computers appeared! The dream started unfolding on pages of little black filaments! The whole world could now be reached! 

Val has published articles and poetry in English and won several Editor's Choice Awards. She has also published a Manual for Students of English with a family member for the CNED (French National Center for Distance Teaching) along with recordings which she took part in alongside her British colleagues. From voice-over work to singing, Val enjoys covering songs on Youtube and writing lyrics both in English and French. To check her out, type vmnetSirena on YouTube. VmnetSirena? What kind of a name is this as some people ask at times. It makes Val laugh. It's as Val wanted it, a bit obscure, not exactly standard, unexpected for the content she publishes on YouTube, TikTok or Facebook; though it simply stands for Valerie Marzac Net. As to Sirena, Val has always liked Mermaids and the sea. And that's that, folks! 

Valerie loves languages, writing and translating. She loves to explain how the language we speak shapes our mind and the way we think. The only way of escaping from one's given subjective view of life is to be at least bilingual. In this respect, translation is an art form. Think of the translator who came up with Les Hauts de Hurlevent for Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Pure genious! The French doesn't make any sense as such and yet it does and translates the English perfectly well. This is the work of an artist who mastered both languages to perfection and was very creative!

Val is very fond of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine. She loves music, especially Leonard Cohen for his incredibly sharp and accurate lyrics but you may also find her listening or singing Alan Walker or Imagine Dragons! Not to forget classical music, Vivaldi's Stabat Mater, Mozart's Requiem, Beethoven, Purcell and many others!

Val loves technology, training AI, keeping-up with all major discoveries in order to improve our lives. Ultimately this is what her motivation is: Helping others in whatever way she can, be it professionals requiring top-notch work or individuals who wish to learn and read.

If you were granted one single wish, which would it be? Val's wish is to be granted as many wishes as she likes, as long as they are meant to improve other people's lives as well as hers.

When asked why she liked to write so much, Val replied: “It’s a way for me to share my world with others, to narrow the gap between our unique experiences, and to hopefully bring other people some joy, entertainment as well as knowledge. Words seem to fly across the room I’m in and all I have to do is to listen to them, catch them and type them”.