Some years ago I was interpreting in depositions at the US Consulate in Osaka. It happened that the opposing side’s interpreter, who would be interpreting for the attorney examining the deponent, was engaged rather suddenly and was not yet on the list of persons to be allowed into the Consulate. He was being made to wait on the first floor while they tried to work through the administrative problems to let him in.
Since the deposition couldn’t proceed without a lead interpreter (I was the check interpreter), we took a break. In the waiting area outside the deposition room, the deposition-taking attorney was at a window discussing the problem.
“Is it an attorney downstairs waiting to enter?” a Consulate official asked him.
“No, it’s just a translator (sic)” was the reply, referring to the interpreter.
The mistake of characterizing an interpreter as a translator aside, this makes me wonder how the attorney intended to examine the Japanese deponent if the person who is “just a translator” was stuck downstairs, waiting among huddled masses of visa applicants (mostly Brazilians that day, as I recall), yearning to breath free or whatever they intended to do in the US.
The interpreter in question is well-known and had spent many more years perfecting his professional skills than did the youngish above-noted attorney.
