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Bulgarian Interpreters

Professional Bulgarian interpreting, virtual or in person, for the settings where getting it wrong has consequences — asylum interviews, hearings, attorney meetings, medical appointments and school meetings.

Bulgarian grammatically marks whether you saw it yourself

Bulgarian has a renarrative mood: the verb form changes depending on whether the speaker witnessed the event or is reporting what they were told. English has no equivalent — it needs "apparently", "I was told", "reportedly", or nothing at all.

In asylum testimony that is not a grammatical curiosity, it is the difference between an eyewitness account and hearsay, and the speaker marks it without thinking about it. An interpreter who renders both forms as plain past tense has silently converted secondhand information into direct testimony, and nobody in the room will know.

Three name elements, and the -ova that is not a different family

Bulgarian names have three parts — given name, a patronymic formed from the father's given name, and the family name — and both the patronymic and the surname are gendered. A daughter is Ivanova where her father is Ivanov.

A US form with two name fields loses the patronymic, and a reader comparing documents sees Ivanov and Ivanova and suspects two people. Where identity is being checked against a document, brief the interpreter so the pattern is explained once rather than argued about.

Transliteration, and what it is not evidence of

Bulgaria legislated an official Latin transliteration in 2009, and it frequently differs from the spelling a family has used in the United States for decades. Гьорги becomes Gyorgi where the family has always written Georgi.

A great many apparent discrepancies in Bulgarian-American files are exactly this, and an interpreter who can say so on the record in one sentence saves a hearing from a detour. Bulgarian is also written in Cyrillic, and documents read aloud in a hearing need the interpreter sight-translating from a script the English speaker cannot follow at all.

Bulgarian is a limited-availability language

There are comparatively few qualified Bulgarian interpreters working in the United States, and the ones there are get booked. That is why Bulgarian carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate, and why lead time matters more here than with a common language: a week is comfortable, two days is a gamble.

We would rather tell you that before you book a hearing date than after. If your date is fixed and close, say so when you enquire and we will tell you honestly whether we can staff it rather than accepting and hoping.

The standard-availability languages are: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Polish, Italian, German, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Tagalog and Bengali. Every other language we offer carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate. If a language is not on that list it is not because we cannot do it — it is because the pool of qualified interpreters in the United States is small enough that we will not promise a date without checking.

What it costs

Rates are per interpreter, per hour, and billed from the scheduled start time rather than from when everyone actually arrives.

• Virtual — $80 per hour, one-hour minimum. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or telephone.
• In person — $110 per hour, two-hour minimum.
• Limited-availability languages — add 25–30%. Which languages those are is listed below rather than left vague.
• Travel for in-person work — $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location.

How the travel charge works out

Travel is charged at $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location, which means you can work it out rather than wait for a quote: a 20-mile round trip is $14, a 60-mile round trip is $42, a 150-mile round trip is $105. There is no separate call-out fee on top.

We will not pretend to know in advance where the interpreter will be coming from — that depends on the language, the date and the venue. What we do is confirm the interpreter and the exact travel figure before you book, so it is never a surprise on the invoice. Virtual assignments carry no travel charge at all, which is one reason most of what we do is virtual.

Where interpretation is used

The settings differ in what they demand of the interpreter, which is worth saying because they are frequently priced as though they were the same work:

• Asylum and immigration interviews. USCIS asylum interviews require the applicant to bring an interpreter, and the interview can be rescheduled if the interpreter does not appear or is not competent — which makes this the setting where getting it right matters most.
• Attorney–client meetings and declarations. Preparing testimony, taking a statement, going through documents.
• Depositions and hearings. Where the record is being made and accuracy is examined afterwards.
• Medical appointments. Note that hospitals receiving federal funding generally must provide language assistance themselves, so ask before you hire.
• School meetings. IEP meetings and parent conferences — districts also have their own obligations here.
• Business meetings, depositions and signings.

What we will tell you before you book

Two things, both of which occasionally cost us the booking. Whether the venue supplies its own interpreter. Immigration court provides one. Hospitals receiving federal funding generally must provide language assistance. School districts have obligations of their own. If yours does, you should not be paying us — ask them first.

And whether we can actually staff your date. For a limited-availability language on short notice the honest answer is sometimes no, and we would rather say it than accept a booking we cannot fill. Interpretation is not translation: see certified translation at $24.95 per page if what you need is a document rendered in writing.

Request an interpreter

Tell us the date, the language and the setting and we will come back with the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one — before you commit to anything.

How it works

Upload a photo or a scan of your document, pick the language pair and check out online. You never have to mail originals: a legible copy is all we need.

A professional human translator, never machine translation, translates the document word for word and mirrors the layout of the original. Every certified translation ships with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy that meets the requirements of USCIS, courts and universities.

Your translation is delivered digitally, usually within 24 hours for documents of one to three pages, and same-day delivery is available. If anything needs adjusting, we revise it.

Frequently asked questions

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