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Vietnamese Interpreters

Vietnamese interpreters by video, phone or in person for asylum interviews, hearings, depositions, attorney meetings, medical appointments and school meetings: $80/hour by video, $140 in person. eVerbary replies within minutes with the interpreter and the exact price, before you pay anything.

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Video, phone or in person

Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or a phone call, or an interpreter at the venue.

From $80 an hour

Virtual $80 an hour with a one-hour minimum; in person $140 with a two-hour minimum.

Quote within minutes

We reply within minutes, four business hours at most, with the interpreter, the exact price and any travel, before you book. Asking costs nothing.

Northern, central and southern Vietnamese

The varieties differ in pronunciation and some vocabulary, and central Vietnamese in particular can be hard going for speakers of the other two. Most US Vietnamese communities are southern in origin, and an interpreter mismatched by region will manage but not smoothly.

Vietnamese is tonal and the tones are meaning-bearing, which is why an interpreter who "gets by" is a genuine risk in a setting where a record is being made.

Kinship terms are how Vietnamese does pronouns

Vietnamese has no neutral 'you' or 'I'. Speakers use kinship terms — older brother, aunt, grandchild — chosen by relative age and relationship, even with strangers. A witness describing an encounter is therefore asserting a relationship in every sentence, and a flat English rendering loses it.

That matters in accounts of coercion or authority, where who was senior to whom is part of what happened. An experienced interpreter surfaces it; a literal one does not.

Names, and the diacritics that will not match the file

Vietnamese marks tone and vowel quality with diacritics, and US records strip them — so Nguyễn Thị Hà appears as Nguyen Thi Ha, and Hà, Hạ and Há collapse into one spelling. Roughly two in five Vietnamese share the surname Nguyễn, so the surname identifies almost nobody.

In any setting where a name is being matched against a document, that combination produces false mismatches and false matches in equal measure. Brief the interpreter in advance and have them state the full name with tones once on the record, which settles it for everyone afterwards.

Vietnamese is a standard-availability language

Vietnamese is one of the languages we can normally staff within the week, including for in-person work in most metropolitan areas, and it is priced at the standard rate with no availability surcharge.

Short notice is still worth flagging when you enquire. A next-day virtual assignment is usually possible; a next-day in-person assignment outside a major city frequently is not, and we will say so rather than accept and hope.

The standard-availability languages are: Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Polish, Italian, German, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Tagalog, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Somali and Nepali. Every other language we offer carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate, except the rare languages — Mam, K’iche’, Q’anjob’al, Tzotzil, Mixtec, Fuzhounese, Hakka, Hakha Chin, Kachin, Balochi, Bambara, Soninke, Tigre, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic — which carry 75%. If a language is not on the standard 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:

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.

In person in a particular city — its courts, its immigration court and the languages spoken there: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Miami and more cities.

What it costs

Rates are per interpreter, per hour, and billed from the scheduled start time rather than from when everyone actually arrives. Every rate with worked examples, and what the federal courts pay their own interpreters, is on what an interpreter costs.

What a Vietnamese interpreter costs, worked out

These are the published rates multiplied out: $80 an hour by video or phone, $140 an hour in person, $0.70 a mile of travel.

Worked examples of interpreting costs
BookingHow it is worked outTotal
One-hour video or phone call1 hour × $80$80
Two-hour video interview2 hours × $80$160
Two-hour meeting in person, 20-mile round trip2 hours × $140 + 20 miles × $0.70$294
Three-hour deposition or closing in person, 40-mile round trip3 hours × $140 + 40 miles × $0.70$448
Full day in person (six hours), two interpreters in relay2 interpreters × 6 hours × $140$1,680 plus travel

The quote confirms the interpreter, the exact travel figure and the total before you book; nothing is charged until you confirm.

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

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 or rare 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:

Interpreters by city

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.

1The interpreter you need

Video and phone carry no travel charge.

2When and where

Only for in-person assignments.

3Your details
Who is this request for?
4Anything else

For example, how many people need interpreting for, or a credential the venue requires.

We reply within minutes, four business hours at most. No payment is taken at this stage.

Frequently asked questions

Does the region matter?

It does. Central Vietnamese in particular differs enough to be worth flagging when you book.

Is the price per person or per interpreter?

Per interpreter, per hour, billed from the scheduled start time. One interpreter covers a meeting; a full-day hearing may need two working in relay.

What if the venue provides its own interpreter?

Then you should not be paying us. Immigration court provides one, and hospitals and school districts frequently must. Ask them first.

Can I see the interpreter's credentials before I pay?

Tell us the credential the venue or the other side requires when you request, and we confirm before you book whether we can staff it. The interpreter's name and credentials are sent once the booking is paid.

How is travel charged?

$0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location — a 20-mile round trip is $14. We confirm the exact figure before you book, and virtual assignments carry none.

Need an interpreter?

Tell us the date, the language and the setting and we will confirm the interpreter and the exact price.

Request a quote

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