Do I really need a translator for AOS interview?

[Blaine74 0]

Wow, thanks for the offers, everyone! I'm really touched by your generosity! I'll talk it over with my wife and see what she wants to do.

My wife crammed for the K1 interview (the questions sounded very predictable so it was easy to study) but as soon as my wife stumbled the interviewer began speaking perfect Japanese. I think she could have muddled through otherwise.

Thanks for the link, payxibka.

Blaine74, did they not mind at all that you translated? They made it seem totally acceptable? Did they ask mostly routine "how did you meet" type questions instead of the trip-you-up "what did each of you have for breakfast yesterday" type that they list on the sample questions page?

actually, they didn't ask too many personal type questions. When they did, they asked simple questions like...how did you meet (which I answere for both of us) She asked what her bday was and what my day was (I let my wife answer her part but I translated what the question was) . Then there was the standard questions like "do you plan on carrying out a terrorist attack or are you a gun toting criminal etc"

They didn't seem to care that I was translating. I think as long as someone there can translate it is fine. I don't think that person has to be a 3rd party.

[takuhi 0]

Now that the interview is behind me, I thought I'd update this topic for posterity...

Turns out the answer was no! After my wife confessed that her English was only so-so, I offered to translate for her and the interviewer said "great! That's wonderful! You don't know how many couples we get in here who can't even communicate with each other." And that was that!

Interview was a breeze—barely any personal questions (just about how we met) and the interviewer only seemed to be asking out of idle curiosity. My wife did fine, I only had to translate the long list of boilerplate questions about whether she was a prostitute/terrorist/racist/spy etc. The interviewer didn't ask to see any documents at all, and spent most of the time giving us advice about how to apply for the 10-year extention without getting called back for an interview. Great guy, great experience. The green card is in the mail!