I’ve been told I dance like everyone’s watching: like prey, immobile, avoiding the predator’s gaze. But that doesn’t deter my shark-eyed partner from coaxing me into an overhead lift on the two-man stage that is our living room. I daresay I enjoy it, and though deleterious for my lower back, it’s a price worth paying.

Art, culture and cinema are what attracted me to languages in the first place. They continue to inform my cultural understanding of the languages I translate from, plus they get me out the house. The odd lift helps to change my perspective.

As the son of a home-cooking, clear-your-plate-or-else father, I was taught about the value of food from a young age (the drink came later). On leaving Yorkshire, I was surprised to learn that some dishes are complete without gravy. Bite by bite, sip by sip, I’m forever learning and forever hungry.

My hometown of Maastricht and surrounds has more than I can chew in that respect, home to a formidable food scene of 85-and-counting restaurants in the Michelin guide. Whether vlaai, nonnevotten, cannelés de Bordeaux or guanciale, Mettwurst and salsiccia di cinghiale: if it’s edible, it’s probably passed my thinning, discerning lips.

I eat books for breakfast and would unflinchingly do the same for lunch and dinner were it not for life’s pressing needs, like actually eating. Thumbing through a book is the fullest extent of physical activity I can muster on good days. On bad days, I’m nursed by my e-reader, backlight dimmed, nose-turning pages. On all the other days, I’ll still be reading.

Books are my medicine: any genre, in any language, does the trick. Crime, romance, queer litfic, history and biography, non-fiction, grammar and linguistics and more are on the menu, and I never feel guilty about ordering too much.

As my mother would tell you, my knack for languages stemmed from my obsessive playing of a well-known Japanese video game. ‘How can you remember all those names?’, she asked. No response, of course: I was locked in battle and my own thoughts.

That consuming trait took over my teen years. I gobbled (and probably garbled) any language I could find resources for: Finnish, Japanese, Korean. Latin and Ancient Greek were anything but dead to me. Enrolling on a Dutch course instead of driving lessons was a blow to my parents, who thought they’d been let off taxi service, but a boon for me as a linguist. Dutch, French, German and Italian (Russian coming soon): it’s all got me where I am today. I knew I didn’t need a car.