MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) – Real Gilbert began translating documents for the city’s French-speaking residents decades ago.

Now his business has boomed along with the region’s immigrant population.

Gilbert’s Words Translation and Interpreting Services Inc. now employs more than 200 interpreters who speak 50-plus languages.

The state has gained at least 18,000 foreign-born residents in the past five years, according to U.S. Census estimates.

In any given week, he may find interpreters and translate documents in languages ranging from African dialects to Vietnamese.

Gilbert, 69, got his start when an insurance company began paying him hundreds of dollars an hour to translate documents from French to English.

He used the money 25 years ago to buy a typing business, where he also began offering interpreting services to the city’s Francophone population. Demand grew, thanks to Japanese and German business travelers, an influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants, and refugees from Sudan and Bosnia.

“Spanish, that is the one that’s requested all the time by everybody, but my requests are for all the crazy, all the unusual languages, and it’s diversifying,” he said. “In one day I may do Cambodian, Vietnamese, Mandarin, you name it. We’ll do eight to nine different languages in one day.”

Many of his clients are businesses that demand confidentiality. He also interprets legal proceedings for clients in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. Once, he spent weeks trying to find a psychotherapist who could do a court-ordered mental health exam in an obscure African dialect.

Much of his business revolves around translating birth certificates, diplomas and academic transcripts, often for refugees and other immigrants fleeing violence or poverty. He has helped many find jobs or connect with social service agencies.

He won’t handle fake documents, he said.

“I’ve seen so many in 25 years,” he said. “Lately, they’re so good that they’re very difficult to spot, but a lot of them have mistakes in them and that’s how we pick them up. Dates that don’t match.”

Still, he understands why people try to fake birth certificates and other documents required to get driver’s licenses, jobs or bank accounts.

“Some of these people have been caught up in wars, United Nation refugee camps,” he said. “They can’t get the information; their villages burned down. It’s hard for us to sit there and understand what these people have been through. We have laws we have to live by, but we probably would have done the same thing.”

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Information from: Concord Monitor, http://www.cmonitor.com

AP-ES-11-27-06 1208EST