Deposition, hospital and USCIS interpreting across the US, and certified translation of the rodny list, the diploma and the criminal record extract that a Czech file needs.
Prism Linguistics provides Czech interpreters for depositions, court hearings, medical appointments and USCIS interviews anywhere in the United States, in person, by phone or by video, and certified English translation of Czech birth and marriage certificates, university diplomas and criminal record extracts for USCIS, with Czechoslovak-era headers kept as printed.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
Czech work in the United States runs on documents first and interpreters second. About 1.4 million Americans claim Czech ancestry, but the great majority are English speakers three or four generations on, so the people who call for a Czech interpreter are recent arrivals, visiting parents and witnesses in commercial cases, and the people who call for a Czech translator are applying for a green card, a work visa or, since 2019, Czech citizenship by descent. Both run through our New York office, with interpreters based near you or on video.
Chicago has been the center of Czech America since the nineteenth century, with the Texas Czech belt between Houston, Austin and San Antonio a close second, and Cedar Rapids, Omaha, Cleveland and Minneapolis behind them. The Czech interpreting that comes out of those places today is a deposition for a Czech engineering supplier, a green card interview for a Czech spouse, and an emergency room visit for a grandmother whose English left with the pain.
Czech and Slovak drift further apart every year. The two were one media market until 1993, so older speakers of either follow the other easily, but younger Czechs increasingly struggle with Slovak. For a conversation that will be on the record we assign a Czech interpreter to a Czech speaker, and we ask rather than assume from a surname.
Czech is not tested by the National Center for State Courts and no state runs a certification exam in it, so a court uses a registered or qualified Czech interpreter. Our Czech court work is mostly civil: depositions and arbitrations involving Czech manufacturers, family court, and probate where an heir lives in Brno. Legal Czech carries its own vocabulary, a soud is a court and an usnesení is a ruling, and a conversational interpreter is not enough. We work for courts, attorneys and law firms, and we are a private agency rather than a court-appointed vendor.
A Czech patient in a US hospital is usually a visitor, an au pair, or an elderly relative, and the request comes with little notice. Providers that take federal funding must supply a Czech interpreter at no cost, and video is the quickest route, often the same day, for a consent discussion or a diagnosis. For an admission, surgery or a mental health assessment we send someone in person.
USCIS work in Czech is mainly marriage-based green card interviews and naturalization interviews for older applicants who use the English-test exemption. The officer expects a disinterested interpreter who signs the declaration form, not the applicant's spouse. Where an applicant is applying to the Czech side instead, for citizenship by descent, the paperwork runs the other direction and a US certified translation may not be the instrument the Czech authorities want; we say so before any work starts.
The Czech documents that cross our desk are the rodný list and oddací list from the local matriční úřad, university diplomas and transcripts for H-1B and I-140 petitions, and the criminal record extract, the výpis z rejstříku trestů, for adjustment of status. USCIS does not require an apostille on any of them, only a complete English translation with a signed certificate.
Two rules a Czech translator has to keep. First, a certificate issued before 1993 names Czechoslovakia, and the translation keeps that header exactly as printed, since a translator who modernizes it to Czech Republic has altered an official record. Second, Czech surnames take a feminine ending, so a mother and son on the same certificate are Nováková and Novák, and a US record may have dropped the -ová; we translate the surname as printed, keep the diacritics, and note the relationship so the officer can match the file. The full document service is at certified translation.
Tell us the date, the city and the setting, or send a clear scan of the document. We reply with a fixed price and, for interpreting, a named linguist. Call +1 (833) 282 8883, email info@prismlinguistics.com, or use the quote form and you will hear back within 60 minutes during business hours.
Our only office is in New York, and our Czech interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Czech work is concentrated; the full list of 288 cities is below it.
Prism Linguistics is rated 4.6 out of 5 across 67 client reviews for its interpreting and translation work in the United States. That is the company-wide figure; we do not publish a separate rating per language because there is no honest way to measure one. If a Czech assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.