While interpreting one day in the US Embassy in Tokyo in an examination of a Japanese deponent by a US attorney, the attorney turned to me and asked “Could you ask him to describe his educational background?”
My reply was, “No, but you certainly could.” It got a laugh from people sitting around the table, including the other interpreter, and the attorney sort of slapped his forehead in recognition of the problem his question to me causes.
Unbelievable? Well, he was new at both examining witnesseses and working through an interpreter. The interpreter should never be asking questions of a deponent or responding to questions from a deponent. Attorneys (and other using interpreters) need to keep in mind that, in this sense, the interpreter must be invisible, even though they are speaking more than either the attorney or the deponent, because they are going in both language directions.