Sinhala interpreting and translation

Sinhala interpreting, from tribunal to hospital ward

We send Sinhala interpreters to immigration tribunals, police stations, magistrates' and crown courts, GP surgeries, maternity units and employment meetings. Telephone interpreting is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and video sessions can run on the SILA Linguists® app or your own system. For seminars and official visits we also arrange consecutive and simultaneous interpreting.

Legal terms often appear in formal literary Sinhala that some clients struggle to follow, so our interpreters render them faithfully and then make sure the meaning lands in everyday words. They also use the respectful forms of address expected with elders and Buddhist monks. Because Sri Lanka's recent history can be sensitive, we confirm whether a client prefers Sinhala or Tamil and respect reasonable wishes about the interpreter, including gender.

Certified Sinhala translation and document work

Sri Lankan birth, marriage and death certificates are frequently handwritten, with English headings and Sinhala entries, and many documents mix Sinhala, Tamil and English. Our translators read difficult handwriting, transliterate names carefully and check them against the passport. Certified translations come with a translator's signed accuracy statement, accepted by UK authorities, universities and employers. Sri Lankan certificates going to Canada can be translated by a provincially certified translator, and those for Australia by a NAATI-certified one.

We also translate police reports, court judgments, academic transcripts, employment contracts and patient information in both directions, using Unicode Sinhala fonts and checking typeset proofs, since some design software renders the rounded script incorrectly.

Sinhala transcription and language analysis

Interview recordings, voicemails and video evidence can be transcribed in Sinhala with timings and an English version alongside. Where a case raises questions of origin or nationality, SILA Linguists® can also arrange language analysis (LADO) by specialist analysts. Speakers who move between colloquial Sinhala, English and occasional Tamil are transcribed exactly as they spoke, so nothing is smoothed over.

Sectors we support in Sinhala

Our vetted, trained and qualified Sinhala linguists can support immigration and asylum representatives, courts and solicitors, the NHS, schools and universities, recruitment and HR teams, and charities supporting Sri Lankan families. One project team manages your booking from start to finish, and every vetted linguist works under a confidentiality agreement and UK GDPR. We also translate contracts and correspondence for Sri Lankan employers, recruiters and businesses trading with Colombo. Sinhala interpreters can support Canadian refugee hearings and Australian courts, hospitals and immigration matters, in person or remotely.