Interpreters wanted to boost thin bleu line

These are just four of the 51 languages for which interpreters are required in West Yorkshire.

Police forces and public sector partners across the region are looking for bi-lingual adults who want to help make a difference to the way the police serve migrant and minority ethnic communities.

West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and Humberside Police, working in partnership with the public sector, have recently been given extra funding to train local people to be interpreters.

As a result, anyone over the age of 18, who is fluent and literate in English and one of the 51 under-represented languages listed can apply to become an interpreter by contacting West Yorkshire Police.

For some under-represented languages, police forces have to use interpreters from outside their region. This can slow down critical investigations for many hours.

It is hoped that the new funds will help create a pool of interpreters who can be called upon to help the police with their work. The training courses will run from April to July.

The 51 most under-represented languages for which interpreters are required are: Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Czech, Dari, Farsi, French, Fullah, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Hungarian, Indian Panjabi, Italian, Japanese, Kurdish Bahdini, Kurdish Kurmanji, Kurdish Sorani, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mandarin, Mandinka, Ndebele, Nepalese, Pakistani, Panjabi, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Shona, Sinhalese, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Sylheti, Tamil, Thai, Tigrinya, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Wolof, Yiddish.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman emphasised that they do not require Pakistani Panjabi, Polish or Urdu in the Bradford area.

For more information contact Emily Wilson by email at

[email protected], telephone 01924 292765, or log on to www.westyorkshire.police.uk/interpreters. The closing date for applications is March 1.