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Rohingya Interpreters

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

Rohingya has no standard written form, so everything goes through speech

Can a document be translated into written Rohingya? Not into a standard one: Rohingya is a spoken language, and attempts to write it have used Arabic, Urdu and Latin scripts as well as Hanifi, a script developed for it, without any of them becoming the norm. In practice an interpreter carries everything — consent forms, declarations and notices are read aloud and explained, and a client's statement is written in English and read back orally.

Reading in another language rarely fills the gap. Translators without Borders puts literacy among male Rohingya refugees in "second" languages such as Bangla and Burmese at around 10–15%, and lower among women. The US pool of Rohingya interpreters is very small, so lead time matters more than usual, and relay is often the honest option; we confirm whether we can staff it before you book.

Chittagonian is the nearest language: close enough to understand, far enough to mislead

Rohingya and Chittagonian, the speech of Bangladesh's Chittagong region, are similar enough that speakers broadly understand each other, which is why many interpreters in the Bangladesh camps are Chittagonian. But TWB documents the gaps: the two communities use different words for everyday concepts such as safety and pregnancy, Rohingya words for gender, protection and accountability differ from Bangla and even from Chittagonian, and terms like consent, confidentiality and compensate are hard to render at all.

Chittagonian, in turn, is not mutually intelligible with standard Bangla, so a Bengali interpreter is a step further away, not a fallback. If a Chittagonian speaker interprets or relays, brief them on the dialect differences, agree the key terms beforehand, and have the client explain back anything that matters — a diagnosis, a deadline, what they are consenting to.

Stateless since 1982, and usually arriving through Malaysia

Burma's 1982 Citizenship Law denied the Rohingya legal status and left them stateless, cut off from education, work and travel, and in Myanmar they are widely treated as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Most who reached the United States came after years in Malaysia with UN refugee status; State Department figures showed arrivals rising from just over 650 in fiscal 2014 to 2,573 in 2015. Chicago is one of the main centers: the Rohingya Culture Center opened in West Ridge in 2016, and more than 600 Rohingya families have been resettled in the city since 2010.

This decides the relay language. Rohingya who went to school in Myanmar may know Burmese and English, earlier refugees in Bangladesh often speak Bangla, and some speak Urdu; women, who often had no schooling, are far less likely to understand any second language. Burmese is the language of the state the client fled, so use it only if the client chooses it — and never book Bengali on the theory that Rohingya are "really" Bangladeshi, which echoes the claim made against them in Myanmar.

Rohingya is a limited-availability language

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

• Translators without Borders (CLEAR Global) — Rohingya language factsheet
• VOA / Reuters — Myanmar refugees, including Muslim Rohingya, outpace Syrian arrivals in US (September 22, 2016)
• Rohingya Culture Center, Chicago — About us

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