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Ewe Interpreters

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

Ewe is not Twi, and a Ghanaian name does not tell you which one the client speaks

Can a Twi interpreter cover an Ewe speaker? No: Ewe is a Gbe language, spoken in south-eastern Ghana east of the Volta and in southern Togo and Benin, and it belongs to a different branch from Akan (Twi) — the Census Bureau’s own language code list keeps Ewe, Fon and Gen separate from Akan, Twi and Fante. Ghanaian clients are routinely booked a Twi interpreter by default; an Ewe speaker may manage a short appointment that way and will not give the same account in it.

Names do not help, and can mislead. Ewe gives every child a name for the day of the week they were born — Kɔdzo (Kodjo) or Adzo for Monday, Kɔmla or Abla for Tuesday, Kɔku or Aku for Wednesday, Yao or Yawa for Thursday, Kofi or Afi for Friday, Kɔmi or Ama for Saturday, Kɔsi or Akɔsua for Sunday — and a name like Kofi or Ama is just as common among Akan speakers. A day name tells you when someone was born, not what they speak.

The same system produces documents that look inconsistent. Many people are called by their day name at home while their formal documents carry another given name, and since the 1970s many educated Ewe have adopted the day name as their official one. Two children with the same day name are told apart with -gã (“big”) and -vi (“little”), so the elder Kofi becomes Kofigã when a younger Kofi arrives. A family petition can show the same person as Kofi, Kofigã and a Western given name; it is one person.

Ewe grammar says who “he” is, and English throws that away

Ewe has a logophoric pronoun, yè, used in reported speech to refer back to the person whose words are being reported. Kofi be e-dzo means “Kofi said he left”, where “he” is someone else; Kofi be yè-dzo means “Kofi said he left”, where “he” is Kofi himself. English renders both the same way.

In testimony about who said what — “my uncle told the police he had seen the men”, “she said she would report me” — the Ewe speaker has already settled who did it, and a plain English “he” undoes that. The interpreter should carry the distinction explicitly (“he himself”, or the name), and a lawyer reviewing an interpreted statement should ask when it matters.

Ewe is also tonal, and tone is mostly left unwritten except where confusion is likely — mí “we” is marked high to keep it apart from mi “you” (plural). A handwritten note or text message in Ewe can be ambiguous on paper in a way it is not when read aloud by the person who wrote it.

Ghana or Togo, coastal or inland: tell us where the client is from

Ewe is a dialect cluster. Glottolog lists varieties including Aŋlɔ (Anlo) on the coast, Ho, Kpelen, Adan, Agu and a Togo Ewe group, and Ewe forms a continuum with Gen (Mina), the language of Lomé, with a mutual intelligibility around 85% reported. All Gbe languages, Fon of Benin among them, share some intelligibility, but Fon is a separate language and we would not assume it.

Which country matters for the second language as much as the dialect. Ewe is a national language in Togo, where French is the language of school and government; in Ghana it is English. A Togolese Ewe speaker’s realistic relay is French, a Ghanaian’s English. The pool of Ewe–English interpreters in the United States is small; tell us the country and town when you book, and we confirm whether we can staff it before you book.

Ewe is a limited-availability language

There are comparatively few qualified Ewe interpreters working in the United States, and the ones there are get booked. That is why Ewe 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.

• Glottolog — Ewe (Gbe; dialects)
• Wikipedia — Ewe language (dialects, naming system, logophoric pronouns, orthography)
• Wikipedia — Gbe languages
• US Census Bureau — American Community Survey language code list

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