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Sinhala Interpreters

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

A Sri Lankan client may need Sinhala or Tamil, and the passport does not say which

Does every Sri Lankan client need a Sinhala interpreter? No: Sri Lanka has two national languages, and an estimated 40% of Sri Lankan Americans are Tamil, who should be booked in Tamil. Sinhala and Tamil belong to different language families and are not mutually intelligible, so the question to ask is the client's own language, not their country.

The match matters in both directions. Sri Lanka's long civil war divided along the Sinhala–Tamil line, and a Tamil applicant handed a Sinhala-speaking interpreter is unlikely to give a full account; a Sinhala-speaking client in a political asylum matter may have views about the interpreter's background too. Ask, and tell us — the Sinhala pool is small, so preferences are easier to meet with notice.

A small community, concentrated in New York, California and Texas

The Census Bureau's 2024 survey counts about 63,900 people of Sri Lankan origin (alone), the most in California (11,200), New York (7,200), Texas (6,400), Maryland and New Jersey. The last detailed language count, for 2009–2013, found 26,745 Sinhala speakers, with California (7,290), New York (2,890) and Texas (2,560) leading. Staten Island's Tompkinsville neighborhood, known as Little Sri Lanka, is one of the largest Sri Lankan communities outside the country.

Numbers that small mean a short list of interpreters nationally, and fewer still who can attend in person outside the main communities. Virtual interpreting is usually the realistic format, and a week's notice changes what is possible.

Spoken and written Sinhala are two grammars, so documents are a separate job

Sinhala is a textbook case of diglossia. Literary Sinhala is used for all writing, for official documents and for broadcast news; spoken Sinhala is used for everything else, and the two differ in grammar, not just vocabulary. Spoken Sinhala has no subject–verb agreement at all, while literary Sinhala marks person, number and gender on every verb; the copula venavā is required in one and impossible in the other.

So when a birth certificate, a police report or the client's own declaration is read aloud, the interpreter is reading a register the client does not speak and may follow only partly. Say in advance if documents will be read in the session; it changes both the time needed and who we send.

The "ge" name, the initials, and a passport that splits them differently

A Sinhala name may have three parts: an ancestral or house name ending in -ge ("belonging to"), one or more given names, and sometimes a surname. In Rajapaksha Mudiyanselage Siril Ariyaratna, Rajapaksha Mudiyanselage is the family name and Siril and Ariyaratna are given names; in daily use it shrinks to initials, as in R. M. S. Ariyaratna. Converted to Western order, either the ge-name or the surname can end up as the "last name", and the Sri Lankan passport simply divides the name into Surname and Other names.

One person can therefore appear under two different last names across a US file without anything having changed. Common surnames such as Perera and Fernando, adopted under Portuguese rule, are also so widespread that a shared surname says little about kinship. Have the interpreter spell the full name once, element by element, on the record.

Sinhala is a limited-availability language

There are comparatively few qualified Sinhala interpreters working in the United States, and the ones there are get booked. That is why Sinhala 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 — Detailed Languages Spoken at Home, 2009–2013 American Community Survey (nation and state tables)
• U.S. Census Bureau — American Community Survey 2024, Table B02015, Asian alone by selected groups
• Wikipedia — Sinhala language (diglossia)
• Wikipedia — Sinhalese name
• Wikipedia — Sri Lankan Americans

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