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Mongolian Interpreters

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

The "surname" on a Mongolian passport is the father's given name

Do Mongolians have surnames? Not in the American sense. A Mongolian passport puts the patronymic, the father's given name (эцэг нэр), in the field translated "surname". The person's own name goes under "given name", and a clan name (овог, ovog) appears as "family name". The patronymic is usually in the genitive, ending in -iin or -yn: President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh is Khürelsükh, and Ukhnaa was his father.

This causes predictable trouble in American paperwork. Brothers and sisters with the same father share a "surname", but a parent and child never do. A person addressed as "Mr. Ukhnaa" is being called by their father's name. Clan names were dropped under communism and restored only in the 1990s. A government decree of January 1997 set the official order as clan name, father's name, personal name. Over half the population chose Borjigin, the clan of Chinggis Khan, and many people use their clan name only on official documents, and some do not remember their own, so on its own it identifies almost no one.

Civil records follow the same pattern. The State Department notes that Mongolian birth certificates exist in five different generations of format, and each lists a "last name" for the child and for both parents. The interpreter should explain the naming structure once on the record, early, and then use the given name throughout.

Cyrillic, several romanizations, and one name spelled Mönkh or Munkh

Mongolia has written Mongolian in Cyrillic since the 1940s, and there is no single official romanization. Mongolia's national transcription standard (MNS 5217:2012) writes the letters ө and ү as ö and ü. The state registration authority, which issues identity documents, writes ө, ү and у all as plain u. So the name Мөнх can be Mönkh on one paper, Munkh on a passport, and Monkh once a US database strips the diacritics. It is one name, and an interpreter reading the Cyrillic aloud can settle the question in a sentence.

Mongolian documents read aloud at a hearing have to be sight-translated from Cyrillic, which the English speakers in the room cannot follow. Mongolia has also announced plans to use the traditional vertical script alongside Cyrillic in official documents from 2025. Send us copies of anything that will be read so the interpreter can check which script and which spelling conventions it uses.

A Mongolian speaker from China is a different booking

Mongols in China's Inner Mongolia speak Mongolian and write it in the traditional Mongolian script, not Cyrillic (CLDR's script data has Mongolian written in Cyrillic in Mongolia and in Mongolian script in China). Glottolog also lists the Mongolian of Inner Mongolia ("Peripheral Mongolian") separately from Khalkha (Halh), the language of Mongolia. How well a speaker from Inner Mongolia and an interpreter from Ulaanbaatar understand each other depends on the people and the subject, so do not assume it. A document in vertical script needs an interpreter who can read that script.

This matters in asylum work. In 2020 Human Rights Watch reported that Inner Mongolia's schools were ordered to teach three subjects in Mandarin instead of Mongolian, and that protests and arrests followed. A client from Inner Mongolia is a Chinese citizen, will usually have studied Mandarin at school, and may not want to give an account of persecution through a Mandarin interpreter. Tell us whether the client is from Mongolia or from China, and ask which language they want.

In the United States, the Census Bureau's 2009–2013 table counted about 10,200 Mongolian speakers. The largest metro area was Chicago (about 2,150), followed by San Francisco–Oakland, the Washington, DC area, Los Angeles and Seattle.

Mongolian is a limited-availability language

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

• Landinfo (Norwegian Country of Origin Information Centre) — Mongolia: Namn og namnestrukturar (January 4, 2022, in Norwegian)
• Alan Sanders — Putting the cart before the horse: how Mongolians began to write their names back to front, Acta Mongolica 12 (2012)
• US Department of State — Mongolia reciprocity schedule and civil documents
• US Census Bureau — Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English, 2009–2013 (October 2015)
• Human Rights Watch — China: Mongolian Mother-Tongue Classes Curtailed (September 4, 2020)
• Unicode Consortium, CLDR — likely subtags (default script by language and region)
• Glottolog 5.3 — Peripheral Mongolian (peri1253), with Halh Mongolian (halh1238)

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