About Sanne van Loosen

You want to who you’re doing your language-related business with. And you’re absolutely right! Read on and I’ll introduce myself briefly. If you’d rather have the dry facts, please see my LinkedIn page for a CV.

You could say I’m a language geek. I enjoy getting down to the nitty gritty, in terms of both language and content. This all started with a science-oriented background: until I was about twenty years old, I was much more of a ‘science person’. I spent my first year at university studying astronomy, which didn’t turn out too well. From that point on, I came to realise that I would be much better off doing what I was really good at than what I wanted to be good at. That meant a combination of English, Dutch, and writing – three elements that come together in translation.

Where in my experience students of English often start their education without a clue of what they want to be, I started my programme in English Language and Culture at Leiden University with a purpose: I wanted to become a translator. In 2011 I attained my MA degree, specialising in legal translation, and in 2012 I specialised further at the highly-acclaimed SIGV institution, taking a course in the field of criminal law translation.

I had never expected to become a language teacher as well. Through my network I got in touch with the English department of Nijmegen University for a temporary teaching job. This was in 2012 and at the time I felt this was no more than a one-off adventure, but then I landed another job, and then another one elsewhere.

Today I’m still teaching – I couldn’t do without it anymore. I teach academic writing and English language acquisition as part of all sorts of university programmes, ranging from BA to PhD level. At the moment this is mostly through the Language & Training Centre of Erasmus University Rotterdam. To date, I am the proudest of the two years I taught at the English Language and Culture department of Leiden University – my ‘home base.’