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Khmer Interpreters

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

Khmer speakers in the US are mostly survivors of the Khmer Rouge years and their families

Who needs a Khmer interpreter in the United States? Mostly Cambodians who came as refugees after 1979, and their elders: nearly 158,000 Cambodians were admitted between 1975 and 1994, almost all as refugees, and the Census Bureau's 2024 survey still counts 190,601 people speaking Khmer at home, 102,600 of whom speak English less than "very well" — more than half, against about one in six Telugu speakers.

They are concentrated: California has about 64,000 Khmer speakers, Long Beach holding the largest population of Cambodian ancestry outside Cambodia; Massachusetts about 19,000, centered on Lowell; Washington about 16,000. EthnoMed notes that most came from rural Cambodia and arrived illiterate or semiliterate in Khmer, because schools were in the cities and the Khmer Rouge halted education entirely from 1975 to 1979. Statements and forms need to be read aloud, and a request to "read and sign" is a request the interpreter has to turn into speech.

Deportation cases put a Khmer-speaking parent beside an English-speaking son

Since Cambodia signed a repatriation agreement with the United States in 2002, Cambodian-Americans with criminal convictions and no citizenship can be removed. By early 2013 about 600 had been deported, nearly 1,900 had final orders of removal and 669 more were in proceedings, according to ICE figures reported by the Boston Globe. The people facing removal typically arrived as small children or were born in the Thai camps, were educated in the US and often speak Khmer poorly.

That inverts the usual booking. The respondent may testify in English while the parents, the witnesses on hardship and family ties, need Khmer — and they are the generation with the least English and the heaviest history. Book for the witness list, not just for the person in the case caption.

Family name first, kinship titles always

Khmer names are spoken and written family name first, with no comma: in Soth Sopheap, Soth is the family name and family and friends say Sopheap. US filing systems routinely reverse it, and EthnoMed describes the result — one patient with two charts, Soth, Sopheap and Sopheap, Soth. Formal address uses Lok (Mr.) or Lok Srey (Mrs.) with the given name: Keo Mony is "Mr. Mony", not "Mr. Keo".

Cambodians also address people who are not relatives by kinship titles — Ta (grandfather), Po (uncle), Bang (older brother), Yeay, Ming, Bang Srey — whenever age or seniority is unclear, and an older patient may use one for a young caseworker. In testimony, "my uncle" may therefore be a neighbor; an interpreter who renders it literally adds a relative to the record, and one who asks adds a sentence. Romanization of Khmer is not standardized either, so spellings of the same name vary from document to document.

Khmer is a limited-availability language

There are comparatively few qualified Khmer interpreters working in the United States, and the ones there are get booked. That is why Khmer 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. Census Bureau — American Community Survey 2024, Table B16001, Language spoken at home by ability to speak English (national and state)
• EthnoMed (University of Washington / Harborview Medical Center) — Cambodian cultural profile
• Boston Globe Magazine — Cambodian-Americans confronting deportation (January 27, 2013)
• Wikipedia — Cambodian Americans
• Wikipedia — Deportation of Cambodians from the United States

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