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Spanish continues to be the most requested language for over-the-phone interpretations nationwide, according to a report released by Language Line Services, a provider of interpretation and services. Translation services such as chat translation help to eliminate barriers that have been previously erected between people who speak different languages.

This new report also notes that requests for languages including Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese and Russian have also increased “significantly” across 20 major U.S. cities in the last year.

Chat translation has become key to business success for companies working with a diverse clientele that is multilingual. With chat translation technology, the communication between an English speaking customer support team and for example, a Spanish speaking customer becomes much easier.

The report entitled, “Language Line LanguageTrak : Interpreter Demand Index (IDI),” also shows the percentage of growth in each language between Q3 2010 and Q3 2011.

The interpreter requests for Mandarin increased in more cities than any other language -- in 14 out of the 20 cities, according to the report. This increasing demand in interpreters highlights the need for innovative chat translation technology.

Moreover, the new report also notes that Arabic and Vietnamese both were among the top-five most requested languages in 12 of the 20 cities, and interpretation requests for both languages grew in 11 of the 20 cities. Plus, the Russian language was among the top five most requested languages in 10 of the 20 cities.

Some of the unexpected findings of the report include the fact that Burmese was among the top five languages requested in seven of the 20 cities, while Somali was the second-most requested language, trailing behind Spanish in Columbus and Memphis.

In addition, the report also found that Los Angeles saw interpreter requests grow for only two languages – Japanese by 15 percent; and Armenian by 13 percent, while San Antonio had triple-digit growth in requests for interpreters in Italian at 654 percent and Cantonese coming in at 300 percent.

These findings show that the U.S society is increasingly becoming multilingual and to communicate with a growing non-English speaking customers and employees, companies must begin to utilize chat translation platforms. Similar to multilingual chat, chat translation system helps users to understand a foreign language.

“Many of the languages now being spoken in the U.S. are completely new to the country, and many organizations are simply not ready for them,” said Louis F. Provenzano, Jr., president & CEO at Language Line Services.

These new populations have to fend for themselves without the benefit of pre-existing generations with the same background and common language, Provenzano added, commenting that these are critical needs in local governments, court systems, healthcare agencies and emergency services that the language access industry can help overcome, but we're not there yet.

Earlier this month, TMCnet reported that Language Line Services is now tweeting in five of the top non-English languages spoken in the United States which are Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish.