Cantonese interpreting & translation services

Cantonese is the language of Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangdong province, and for more than a century it was the dominant Chinese language of California's Chinatowns in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles. It remains widely spoken by older generations and by families from Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta, and it is a California court-designated language with its own certification exam.

Cantonese and Mandarin are not mutually intelligible when spoken, so it is essential to specify which one you need. A Mandarin interpreter cannot substitute for a Cantonese speaker in a medical consultation or deposition. Focus Interpreting confirms the spoken language, and where relevant the speaker's home region, at booking; we can also supply interpreters for Toishanese and other Yue dialects still common in older Chinatown communities.

For written material, there is no separate Cantonese written standard in most contexts: Hong Kong and Macau use Traditional Chinese characters, while mainland China uses Simplified. When you request a certified Chinese translation we will ask about the audience so the document uses the right character set and terminology, and our desktop publishing team handles Chinese fonts and layout.