• Joining a community

    Joining a community provides a vital network of support and encouragement. Whether you're pursuing personal growth, tackling challenges, or striving for professional success, having like-minded individuals around you can make a significant difference. In a supportive community, you'll find people who understand your journey, offer valuable advice, and cheer you on during both triumphs and setbacks. This sense of camaraderie can boost your confidence, motivate you to push beyond your limits, and provide a safety net when you need it most.

  • Opportunities for learning and growth

    Communities serve as hubs of knowledge exchange and continuous learning. By connecting with individuals who share your interests or goals, you gain access to a wealth of information, experiences, and perspectives. Engaging in discussions, attending workshops, or participating in collaborative projects within your community can broaden your horizons, challenge your assumptions, and inspire new ideas. Through ongoing interaction and exposure to diverse viewpoints, you'll continually expand your skills, insights, and capabilities, fostering personal and professional growth.

  • Networking and collaboration

    Joining a community offers unparalleled networking opportunities and the potential for fruitful collaborations. By interacting with fellow members who possess complementary skills or expertise, you can forge meaningful connections that may lead to mutually beneficial partnerships, career advancements, or creative endeavors. Whether you're seeking mentors, collaborators, or potential clients, a vibrant community provides a fertile ground for building relationships, exchanging resources, and unlocking new opportunities. Through collaborative efforts and shared endeavors, you can amplify your impact, achieve common goals, and make a lasting contribution to your community and beyond.

Convenant Vertaalsector Nederland

What freelance translators expect of agencies, and vice versa.

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Guidelines for proofreading students

For copy-editors who work with students, or students who work with copy-editors.

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Find a freelancer

SENSE freelancers offer copywriting, editing, indexing, interpreting, language teaching, journalism, proofreading, training, transcription, translating, and subtitling.

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SENSE Blog

Read the SENSE Blog with articles by our blog staff, SENSE members and guest authors.

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What SENSE is

SENSE is a society for English-language professionals based in the Netherlands. We currently have about 280 members, including technical, style and copy editors, translators, proofreaders, copywriters, interpreters, journalists, teachers, researchers, academics and language/communication consultants. Most of our members either live in or have a professional connection to the Netherlands, but work primarily in English (either full-time or part-time, freelance or in-house).

What SENSE does

SENSE supports its members and the language profession in many ways. The Society:

  • helps language professionals meet the special challenges of working in English in a Dutch-speaking country.
  • organizes a full calendar of workshops, webinars and social events for members and non-members alike.
  • hosts an online Forum where members can ask questions and discuss issues.
  • organizes get-togethers called Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to meet, discuss and learn about topics related to the group's interests.
  • operates a mentoring programme in which more experienced members provide guidance to less experienced colleagues.
  • provides a membership database where members can find colleagues and make useful contacts.
  • provides useful information and resources in our online Library of files.
  • maintains an active presence on Facebook (both public and private), LinkedIn (both public and private) and X (formerly Twitter).
  • engages in advocacy and the promotion of standards on behalf of language professionals in the Netherlands and Europe.
  • encourages communication between societies and institutions involved in language.

History of SENSE

SENSE was founded in 1990 by a small group of English-speaking editors living in the Netherlands. Their objective was to form a society that could deal with the problems of language attrition and linguistic isolation faced by English-speaking language professionals living and working in a non-anglophone country. SENSE has also attracted many native speakers of Dutch, who bring valuable perspectives on working in the English language industry in the Netherlands.

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Publications

The following resources are available to the public: