One day many years ago, I was interpreting in a deposition of a Japanese witness in the US Embassy in Tokyo. A question was raised about an expression I used in interpreting a response from the deponent. The expression I used was ultimately accepted, but during the discussion I happened to explain that “I had interpreted the expression ABC as XYZ.” Someone piped up in the room to say “Please don’t interpret, just translate.” This is a seemingly lost battle on the part of language service providers to have people understand the difference between translators and interpreters (and sometimes linguists). More on this elsewhere.
