About Metamorfose
When we founded Metamorfose Vertalingen in 2004, our aim was to serve as a professional translation agency for high-quality clients in the private and public sectors. Thanks to the considerable expertise and commitment of our employees – all highly talented professionals – we have managed, in a relatively short period of time, to build a reputation as the premier translation partner of numerous well-known international businesses and institutions, including some of the largest listed companies, government bodies and institutes of higher education in the Netherlands. We also work for private individuals, but generally not beyond the provision of sworn translations of official documents.
In our elegant company building on Catharijnesingel in Utrecht (the Netherlands), our team of 13 internal staff members work to provide our clients with first-class language and translation services in a wide range of language combinations. Our primary activity – in terms of volume – is translations from Dutch into English (American or British), for which we have an internal team of five native speakers of English. Another very important combination is English-Dutch. In addition, we provide translations in all EU languages, Chinese, Arabic and – incidentally – more exotic languages such as Farsi or Icelandic. We have built up a select network of professional external translators in the Netherlands and abroad to support our internal team.
Our name is derived from the Greek word metamorphoun, which means ‘to transform’ or ‘to change shape’. We believe it is a suitable name for a translation agency; after all, that is exactly what we do: transform your text so that it reappears in a new shape. Indeed, language itself is in a constant state of flux. In addition to transposing your text into a different language, we ensure that its style and terminology reflect the evolving needs of your target group.
Our company name also alludes to ‘Metamorphoses’, a work by the Roman poet Ovid from the beginning of the Christian era. In this epic, Ovid describes the genesis of the earth and humanity as a series of violent transformations in which the gods change themselves and human beings into animals, trees or even pillars of salt, as it suits their purpose, and in which the world transmutes from one state of chaos into another. The poem originates in an awareness of the transitory nature of all things – a truly modern view that currently pervades society more than it has ever done before.
A translator is a craftsman, not a poet. However, by transposing a text from one language into another, he does change its shape in a metamorphic sense. From that point of view, to translate is really to ‘metamorphose’ a text.
