Legal and solicitor meetings
Wills, divorce and family matters, property, immigration advice and other meetings with a solicitor or adviser.
Interpreting Services
A qualified, discreet interpreter for your own appointments, from a meeting with your solicitor to a private medical consultation.
Private interpreting services are interpreting booked by you, for your own appointment, rather than by an employer or a public body. If you have an important meeting and English is not your first language, a private interpreter sits in with you and makes sure you follow every word and can say exactly what you mean. You do not need an account or a company behind you to book one.
Prism Linguistics arranges private interpreters across the UK in more than 300 languages, in person or on the phone. The setting may be more personal than a courtroom or a conference, but the interpreter is just as qualified, and the confidentiality is just as tight. It is the same network behind our wider interpreting services, simply booked by an individual instead of an organisation.
Most people who ring us about a personal interpreter are facing one appointment where a misunderstanding would matter. They want to walk in knowing they will understand what is said, and walk out knowing they were understood. Arranging it is simple: tell us the language, the date, the place and roughly what the appointment is about, and we quote a fixed price.
You will not be asked for a purchase order number or a framework code. Those exist on the public sector side of our work and they are not your problem. What we do ask for is enough detail to send the right person, because an interpreter who is excellent at a bank meeting is not automatically the right choice for a difficult hospital conversation.
Health is the most common reason people book privately: a consultation with a specialist, a second opinion, a conversation about a diagnosis or a treatment plan you cannot afford to half-follow. Clinicians speak quickly and use words that do not travel well between languages, and nodding along is easy to do and hard to undo later.
An interpreter in the room lets you ask the question you actually wanted to ask. Tell us the specialism when you book, since a cardiology appointment and a mental health assessment call for different experience. One thing worth knowing: if an NHS trust is arranging the appointment, the trust usually books the interpreter itself, so ask them before paying for one yourself.
Wills, divorce and family matters, immigration advice, a dispute with a landlord, a statement to be signed. Legal English is difficult even for native speakers, and a solicitor is advising you on the basis of what they think you told them. An interpreter makes both directions accurate, and most firms are glad you brought one.
The same applies to signing documents in front of a notary or solicitor, where you need to know exactly what you are agreeing to before your signature goes on it. We interpret at those appointments. We do not provide or arrange the notarisation itself, and we would not pretend otherwise. If a document also needs to be translated into English for the firm or the court, that is our certified translation service rather than an interpreting booking.
Register offices often require an independent interpreter at a notice of marriage appointment when one party does not speak English well, and they will usually not accept a relative for that role. The registrar needs to be satisfied that the person understands the declarations they are making, which is exactly what an independent professional is there to demonstrate.
We also cover the ceremony itself, along with citizenship ceremonies and funerals. These are occasions rather than meetings, and the interpreter's job is to be present, accurate and almost invisible. Book early: Saturdays in summer go quickly.
Buying a home in the UK involves a run of conversations that each assume you followed the last one: the estate agent, the mortgage adviser, the survey, the conveyancer, then completion. This is not the moment to guess at the difference between leasehold and freehold, or between fixed and tracker. The same goes for opening an account or a session with a financial adviser. An interpreter keeps you on equal terms with the person across the desk, but will not advise you on the deal, and you should be wary of any interpreter who tries to.
Wills, divorce and family matters, property, immigration advice and other meetings with a solicitor or adviser.
Private consultations, second opinions and discussions about treatment, where understanding every detail matters.
Interpreting when you sign legal documents in front of a notary or solicitor, so you know what you are agreeing to.
Notice of marriage appointments and ceremonies at a register office, where an independent interpreter is often required.
Viewings, estate agent meetings, mortgage appointments and completion, when buying or renting a home.
Parents' evenings, admissions and SEN reviews, and family meetings where everyone needs to follow the same conversation.
Personal appointments are personal. Every interpreter we send has signed a non-disclosure agreement, and nothing said during your appointment is repeated or recorded. Your contact details and the reason for your booking are handled in line with UK GDPR and seen only by the small team arranging the interpreter.
If you live in a community where a lot of people know each other and speak your language, say so when you book. It is a reasonable thing to raise, we hear it often, and we can send someone from further afield. The interpreter's job is to relay accurately and completely what each side says. They will not give you advice, take sides or speak for you. The decisions stay yours.
In-person interpreting suits anything long, emotional or paper-heavy: a diagnosis, a will, a completion meeting with forms on the table. You get body language, and the interpreter can see who is speaking and what is being pointed at. Our face-to-face interpreting page goes into the detail.
For a ten-minute call to a surgery, an insurer or a landlord, telephone interpreting is quicker and cheaper, billed by the minute with no travel and no minimum on most calls. Video interpreting sits between the two, useful when the appointment is remote but you still want faces on screen. If someone in the family is Deaf we provide British Sign Language interpreters, and a large multilingual event is conference interpreting. Not sure? Describe the appointment and we will tell you which is sensible, including when the cheaper option is the right one.
In-person interpreting is priced by the hour, with travel where the venue is not near the interpreter, and there is a minimum booking of normally two hours. People sometimes find that odd for a forty-minute appointment. The reason is simple: the interpreter has blocked out that part of their day, turned down other work and travelled to you, and appointments overrun more often than they finish early.
The rest is language, notice and timing. A widely spoken language booked a week ahead in a city sits at the cheaper end; a rare language at a weekend an hour outside town does not. Telephone interpreting avoids most of that, being billed by the minute. Indicative UK ranges are on our pricing page, and we give you a fixed figure through the quote form before you commit to anything.
Nothing here is complicated, but people ask us these questions all the time, so here is the whole thing in order.
The language and, if it matters, the dialect or country. The date and start time. The address. Roughly how long it will last. What kind of appointment it is. That is enough for a price. Use the quote form or call +44 (0) 20 3880 6688.
You get a fixed cost including any travel before you agree to anything, then the interpreter's first name and their qualifications. Payment is arranged in advance for private bookings.
Meet the interpreter a few minutes early, outside the room if you can. Say what the appointment is about and mention any names or terms likely to come up. Then speak normally, to the other person rather than to the interpreter, in ordinary-length sentences.
They interpret everything said, in both directions, without adding, softening or leaving anything out. They will not advise you, fill in forms, witness documents, or answer for you. If you want something explained, ask the professional in front of you and the interpreter will relay the answer.
More than 300. A Polish interpreter for a mortgage meeting in Manchester and a Romanian interpreter for a registrar appointment are routine bookings, as is interpreting in Urdu for a private consultation. Rarer languages are perfectly doable, they just need more notice and there may be fewer interpreters within travelling distance. Ask early and we will tell you the realistic options, including whether telephone would serve you better on the day.
Tell us the language, the date and what the appointment is for. We will arrange a qualified, discreet interpreter and give you a clear price first.