Requests for Vietnamese translations spike

NGUOI VIET 2

A service that provides interpretation services in a variety of languages nationwide reports that Vietnamese and Arabic have emerged as the most-requested languages, after Spanish, for over-the-phone interpretations for the government and health-care sectors across 20 major U.S. cities.

The report from Language Line Services says that between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the fourth quarter of 2011, Arabic ranked among the top three languages requested in nine of the 20 cities surveyed in the LanguageTrak report; Vietnamese, eight cities; Mandarin, seven; and Burmese, five cities.

Vietnamese landed in the top two of requests in San Jose, as well as in the Texas cities of Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth and El Paso. It was the third-most requested language in San Diego.

Vietnamese showed up in the Top 10 in all 20 cities, with a whopping increase of requests in some of them. The ranking in place of requests per city and selected increases:

• New York City, ninth place, 67 percent increase

• Los Angeles, seventh place

• Chicago, fifth place, 29 percent increase

• Philadelphia, seventh place

• Phoenix, fourth place

• Jacksonville, Fla., fifth place

• Indianapolis, ninth place

• San Francisco, fifth place, 30 percent increase

• Columbus, Ohio, sixth place

• Charlotte, N.C., seventh place

• Detroit, fifth place

• Memphis, Tenn., fourth place, 35 percent increase

The largest percentage increase for Vietnamese translation requests came from El Paso, with a 205 percent increase. El Paso’s numbers shot up in several languages, with request increases for Burmese (1467 percent), Arabic (236 percent), Mandarin (89 percent), Amharic (spoken in Ethiopia, 236 percent), Nepali (850 percent) and Farsi (spoken in countries of Persian heritage, 31 percent.)

Language Line Services, based in Monterey, Calif., provided interpretation services in more than 170 languages.

“Communities across the country are experiencing historic demographic and cultural shifts, including a growing influx of limited-English speakers,” said Louis F. Provenzano, Jr., president and CEO of Language Line Services. “Local government leaders, court systems, health-care agencies, emergency services and businesses must be ready to meet the language needs of these residents in order to effectively serve them. And, it’s not just about offering services in Spanish anymore. Arabic, Vietnamese, Mandarin and Burmese round out the top five most-requested languages by our clients.”

Interpretation requests for Korean grew in 13 of the 20 cities. The highest increases were in Memphis (100 percent increase), San Diego (32 percent), Jacksonville (32 percent) and Austin (24 percent). Mandarin saw interpretation request increases in 12 of the 20 cities, with the highest jumps in Jacksonville (113 percent increase), El Paso and Detroit (51 percent).

In addition, Provenzano noted other key findings in the report:

•  San Diego reported triple-digit increases in requests for both Karen (305 percent increase), which is spoken by 1.3 million in Myanmar, formerly Burma, and Cantonese (132 percent).

• Charlotte saw a significant increase in interpretation requests for Urdu (68 percent increase).

• Interpretation requests in Japanese grew notably across several cities: Columbus (76 percent increase), San Jose (58 percent) and Philadelphia (50 percent).

• Somali was the second-most requested language (trailing Spanish) in Columbus and Memphis.

• Nepali interpretation requests increased in seven of the 20 cities, with the largest jumps in El Paso, Memphis, San Antonio and Philadelphia