Translation and Interpreting Services in Charleston

Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the few cities where the USCIS interview is local, and Prism Language Solutions prepares the certified translations those interviews need for any Charleston address. We also book court, medical and school interpreters from our nationwide network, in person in the Lowcountry or by phone and video. Spanish is the main language; Portuguese, Russian, Arabic and Mandarin are the other top requests in county schools. All work is run from our single office in New York, with a fixed written quote in 60 minutes during business hours.

The Charleston County School District shows where the growth is. Its multilingual learners rose from about 1,560 in 2006 to more than 8,000 by the 2024-25 school year, and the district names Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic and Mandarin as its five most common home languages after English.

• Certified translations prepared to meet USCIS requirements
• Human linguists only, matched to the subject
• Fixed written quote within 60 minutes in business hours
• One office in New York, linguists in every state

Certified Translation for the USCIS Charleston Field Office

The USCIS Charleston Field Office, at 1821 Sam Rittenberg Boulevard in West Ashley, holds green card and naturalization interviews for most of South Carolina and, according to the USCIS ZIP code file, for Savannah and five other coastal Georgia counties as well. Charleston applicants are spared the long drive most of the state makes. Affirmative asylum claims are a different matter and are heard by the Arlington Asylum Office, which covers the whole state from Virginia.

Every foreign-language page in a West Ashley interview file must be translated into English in full under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3), with the translator certifying competence and accuracy. The common Charleston gap is a document nobody thought to translate: a divorce decree from a first marriage abroad, or the back of a birth certificate with an amendment stamped on it. If you send us the whole file, anything untranslated gets flagged before the interview date. See USCIS translation and divorce decree translation.

Court Interpreters at the Charleston County Judicial Center

Circuit and Family Court for Charleston County sit at the Charleston County Judicial Center, 100 Broad Street, in the Ninth Judicial Circuit. The city’s municipal court is at 180 Lockwood Boulevard, and magistrate courts run from West Ashley to James Island and Mount Pleasant. Federal cases are heard close by at the Waring Judicial Center, 83 Meeting Street, part of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.

Interpreters for proceedings are drawn from the state court administration’s directory of certified and otherwise qualified interpreters. Law firms on Broad Street call us for the rest: a Spanish interpreter for a deposition or a mediation, a Portuguese interpreter for a Brazilian client meeting, or the translation of contracts and messages entered as evidence. See court interpreting and translation for law firms.

Medical Interpreters for MUSC Health in Charleston

MUSC Health University Medical Center, on Ashley Avenue, has 865 licensed beds and is a Level I trauma center for both adults and children. As the regional referral center for the Lowcountry, it receives patients from far beyond the city, some of whom need an interpreter in a language the hospital rarely sees. MUSC’s duty to offer language assistance comes from 45 CFR 92.201.

Hospitals staff their own interpreters for routine care. We are brought in by clinics, rehabilitation providers, attorneys and families for sessions that need more time or more privacy: a transplant evaluation, a long psychiatric assessment, or a family meeting where relatives dial in from abroad. See medical interpreting and medical records translation.

Spanish and Portuguese Translation in Charleston

Portuguese is the district’s second home language, ahead of Russian and Arabic. Brazilian records such as birth and marriage certificates from a cartório go to a Brazilian Portuguese translation specialist, while documents from Portugal or Cabo Verde go to a European Portuguese translator. See Portuguese translation.

Russian, Serbian and Mandarin Translation in Charleston

About 660 Charleston residents speak Russian, Polish or another Slavic language at home, and Serbia is the leading European country of birth in the city, with about 340 residents. Russian translation and Serbian translation come up for citizenship files, estates and professional licenses. Serbian records may be in Cyrillic or Latin script, and we keep the transliteration consistent with the passport.

Mandarin is in the district’s top five, and China is the leading Asian country of birth in the city. Chinese translation is ordered for notarial certificates, school records and business documents, and a Mandarin interpreter for parent conferences or medical visits. Arabic translation completes the district’s list.

Diploma Translation for Charleston College Applicants

The College of Charleston, founded in 1770, enrolls about 12,000 students, The Citadel is the Military College of South Carolina, and the Medical University of South Carolina trains around 3,000 students across six colleges, from medicine and pharmacy to dental medicine. International applicants, residents and fellows need diploma translation and academic transcript translation that an evaluator or licensing board can check against the original.

Scan the documents and send them through the quote form, or phone +1 (833) 282 8883 for anything urgent. Our guide for a short certificate is around $24.95 a page, and longer documents typically at $0.10 to $0.25 a word. The quote we send you in writing is the final price.

Questions we get asked