Someone born outside the US should do the same as someone born inside
the US, when faced with legal trouble: hire an attorney, not simply an
interpreter. Indeed, part of the lawyer's job is to interpret English
into a foreign language anyway.

Apart from that, my experience with Europeans who come over here is that
they expect to see guns, and lawsuits, around every corner. A colleague
and friend from Germany who had been here nearly a decade was going off
on one of his periodic rants about the prevalence of guns here, and I
finally asked him, in all his time living in the wild wild west had he
ever even *seen* a gun except in the holster of an officer of the law?
No. Then STFU, I explained.(*) I suspect a conversation about lawsuits,
another of his favorite rants, could have taken a similar course.

(*) Paraphrasing Ring Lardner, who likely was paraphrasing himself
anyway.

--
John Gregory ashbury at skypoint.com http://www.skypoint.com/ tilde ashbury
Thought for the moment:
He who laughs last thinks slowest.

On Fri, 13 Nov 2009, Alden & Karin Mead wrote:

> I find myself in sympathy wiith Latino and Japanese players who prefer to use an interpreter when talking to the media. I have a Danish friend of many years, who has spent a lot of time over here, and whose English, apart from a slight accent, is just about perfect. But he once told me that he would hire an interpreter if he ever got in legal troubles over here.
>
> For a public figure, whether politician, ballplayer, or what, talking to the media can seem like much the same as legal trouble, in that a small misunderstanding (caused, for example, by a botched idiom or mixing similar-sounding words with different meanings) can cause a real problem.
>
> Hideki Matsui, for example, has been playing over here now for 7 years, & you would think that in that time he would have picked up a decent amount of English. Well, perhaps he has as far as chatting with teammates in the clubhouse, ordering a beer, etc., but facing the media can be a different matter, with the possibility of a misunderstanding leading to a storm of criticism.
>
> I have a German wife & supposedly speak German, but I think I would agree with my Danish friend about getting an interpreter when things get serious. I recall once discoursing on the old traditional German duels, but unfortunately using the word for "attic" which sounds much like the one for a duel, much to everyone's amusement. And my wife once raised the eyebrows of someone collecting for veterans by replying "yes, I really like anything that helps animals" (mixing veteran with veterinarian). These goofs are just occasion for laughter, but in more serious situations they could cause problems, hence caution is reasonable. Everyone has to make his own decision.
>
> Perhaps Alan and others have had similar experiences and impressions.
> Alden