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Simultaneous Interpreter Bengali, Burmese, Khmer, Vietnamese English in Malaysia

Interpreting is not an activity confined to mainstream languages and the combinations not including English are today are endless. Besides the interpreting services shown above, we are noticing an increase in demand for simultaneous interpreting of SEA languages in Malaysia.

Interpreting from Bengali, Burmese, Thai, Vietnamese into English or Bahasa Malaysia is now “in vogue” due to the large immigrant and floating population residing in Malaysia, estimated in more than 7 (seven) millions as of 2022, or almost 20% of the Malaysian population. Nearly half comes from Indonesia, where language and culture are very similar to Malaysia’s. However, there is also demand for interpreting services in the combination Bahasa Malaysia<>Bahasa Indonesia. The fact is that both languages are not converging but rather evolving as two separate languages and, in years to come, we will observe greater differences among them Other ASEAN languages that are hard to find are available here: Roghinya, Arakanese, Chin dialects, Mon, and some others spoken in Burma/Myanmar.

This need for interpreting services is only going to get greater due to Malaysia’s rapid economic expansion based on labour-intensive industries in all three sectors of the economy. Bengalis work more on primary industries while immigrant from Philipines are mainly oriented n the domestic help sector and Burmese immigrants are found everywhere, from carwash to manicure outlet. Each immigrant group has its own idiosyncrasies and interpreters have to be fully aware and cognizant of those facts.

In many cases, these interpreting services for Bengali, Burmese, etc are done in a context of “community interpreting” i.e. for victims of TiP ( Trafficking in Persons ); as such cases, an additional layer of expertise is required, the ability of interpret for victims of a traumatic episode such as being trafficked. Interpreting for this group of people demands prior capacitation and a certain blend of empathy and detachment, a very rare skill to have unless the interpreter’s EQ is above average. We count with a very reduced but exemplary pool of interpreters duly trained in this domain. (interpreting for Arakanese/Roghinya, Bengali, Syrian/Iraqi Arabic, etc). B Lingo has participated in two TiP workshops for Interpreters as co-organizer in 2020 and 2021. Now there is a small pool of interpreters in Malaysia duly trained but more effort is required.