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Dari Interpreters

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

Book Dari, not Farsi, for an Afghan speaker: the two read alike and sound different

Can a Farsi interpreter cover a Dari speaker? On paper, largely; in an interview, often not. Dari and Iranian Farsi are written almost identically, but Translators without Borders describes them as very different when spoken and advises giving Afghan clients an Afghan interpreter, because the differences in pronunciation and everyday words grow in exactly the informal speech people use to say what happened to them.

The consequence is on record. In a 2015 UK Upper Tribunal appeal, Afghan appellants said they could not follow the Farsi interpreter they had been given; the judge held that the two are similar but "not the same", found the appellants had not been able to give their evidence effectively, and ordered a rehearing with a Dari interpreter. An Iranian client is a different booking, covered on our Persian page.

Most Afghan clients arrived after August 2021, and Dari is not always their first language

Operation Allies Welcome brought more than 76,000 Afghan nationals into US communities by February 2022, according to DHS, and the Census Bureau's 2024 survey counts about 210,000 people of Afghan origin, the largest numbers in California (about 68,600), Texas (about 28,000) and Virginia (about 18,900). The requests that follow are a recent arrival's: attorney meetings for asylum, Special Immigrant Visa and adjustment cases, interviews, medical appointments and schools.

Dari is Afghanistan's lingua franca, and that hides a booking question. Translators without Borders notes that native Pashto speakers often learn Dari while few Dari speakers command Pashto, so a Pashtun client may get through an interview in Dari and tell it more fully in Pashto; an Afghan Uzbek may be better served in Uzbek. The same factsheet puts Afghan literacy at 38% (24% for women), so many Dari speakers need documents read to them rather than handed over.

Afghan dates come in three calendars, and the month names are not Iran's

Afghanistan counts the same solar Hijri years as Iran, but Afghan documents from before the Taliban's return name the months after the zodiac — Hamal, Sawr, Jawza, Saratan — where an Iranian document says Farvardin, Ordibehesht, Khordad, Tir. "15 Saratan 1399" is a date an Iranian-trained interpreter has to convert twice, once into the month they know and once into the Gregorian calendar, and that second step is where errors come from.

Since March 2022 the Taliban have directed government offices to date communications by the lunar Hijri calendar, whose year number now runs about 43 ahead of the solar one. A recent document can therefore carry a year in the 1440s while an older one for the same family carries a solar year in the 1390s or 1400s. Brief the interpreter to name the calendar every time a date is read aloud, and convert in writing afterwards rather than on the fly.

FNU, single names, and the grandfather in the surname field

Many Afghans traditionally go by a single given name; what a US form treats as a surname is often a tribal name, a grandfather's name or a birthplace. When visas were issued, the given name was frequently moved into the surname field and FNU — "first name unknown" — entered as the first name, and it then followed people onto green cards and driver's licenses, so relatives can share the first name FNU and have different last names.

In an interview the interpreter should render a name exactly as the person says it and leave the reconciliation with the file to the attorney. A client who answers with one name when the form shows two is not being inconsistent, and one sentence on the record says so before anyone treats it as a discrepancy.

Dari is a limited-availability language

There are comparatively few qualified Dari interpreters working in the United States, and the ones there are get booked. That is why Dari 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, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Somali and Nepali. 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.

By video, by phone or in person

Virtual interpreting runs on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, or over the telephone. It is quicker to arrange, costs less and carries no travel charge, and it suits appointments, calls and most meetings.

In person is what venues with their own rules tend to expect, and the right choice when documents are being signed or several people are speaking at once. Tell us the platform, or the city and the venue, when you send the request.

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 and signings, such as real estate closings.

Each setting has its own page — who has to provide the interpreter, what the meeting asks of one and what it costs: see interpreters by setting.

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.

How booking an interpreter works

• You send the request with the form below: the language, the setting, the format, the date and how long it should last.
• We confirm before you commit: the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one. We reply the same business day, and no payment is taken at this stage.
• You confirm, and the interpreter is booked for your date.

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.

What to have ready

The more of this comes in the first message, the fewer exchanges before you have a price:

• The language, the date, the start time and how long it should run.
• Virtual or in person: the platform, or the city and the venue.
• The setting and the subject matter.
• How many people need interpreting for.
• Any credential the venue requires of the interpreter.

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.

Sources

The facts on this page about the language and its speakers in the United States were checked against these sources on October 28, 2026.

• U.S. Department of Homeland Security — Operation Allies Welcome announces departure of all Afghan nationals from U.S. military bases (February 19, 2022)
• U.S. Census Bureau — American Community Survey 2024, Table B02015, Asian alone by selected groups
• Translators without Borders (CLEAR Global) — Farsi and Dari language factsheet
• UK Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) — AA/09940/2013 & AA/04638/2014 (June 2015)
• Wikipedia — Solar Hijri calendar (month names in Iran and Afghanistan)
• 8am Media — Taliban changes solar year to Hijri lunar calendar (March 26, 2022)
• Texas Standard — Why "FNU" is the official first name of many Afghan allies in the U.S. (March 11, 2016)

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