Well that's really what I meant by a charitable service and funding. It's set up as a charity but the employees are professionals. A bit like the RSPCA but smaller. There are enough charities out there pulling down funding for obscure, small sectors and in fact something like this would fulfill a genuine need and gap.
If you are sat in front of the doctor and your limited French means you can't explain yourself correctly, to be able to say, 'dial this number' and for a bilingual person to be on the other end, would be a Godsend. It wouldn't be taking work away from professional translators (unless they offer this kind of service?) but I can see that there is a genuine need.
Oh yes, you make sense all right - BUT and this is the crux, really, informally is usually safe enough, but if somebody goes & interprets in situations where somebody will really be affected by a mistake they have to be qualified & insured because if they make a cock-up then who is liable? & that's why it is such a grey area.
I would never even dream of saying I can speak French - so they shouldn't.
I limp along, I limp more when I'm tired. So, why oh why, do I always seem to get appointments with French authorities in the PM (when I'm a blithering idiot!)
It just strikes me Veronique that there is a gap to be filled - not by me because I can't speak French. But I'm sure there must be funding to run a 'charitable' service whereby people want a more informal interpretation. So, even for instance if you need to speak to clarify issues with the authorities on an informal basis, then someone could be telephoned while you are there and they could interpret the conversation.
There are a lot of fantasists about who imagine that because they can order their caffay o lay seal voo play they speak French. Sadly not. Where do you live?
I do a lot of going to lawyers/doctors/etc & interpreting for people, when I'm available - they are usually people I know (either the client or the lawyer/dr) so I don't charge anything. People are used to someone bringing a bilingual friend if they need one- just make sure they are actually properly bilingual (my ex-husband brought an assermentée English supposed translator along when we got divorced and she was unbelievably inefficient because she simply didn't have the vocab to speak proper French & I declined to do the interpreting, for obvious reasons; so it took ages).
If I'm asked to provide a service for a business or people that I don't know, then I do charge, and I charge for translation because my speciality is big-volume industrial/legal/medical translation in both directions and it is a job not a favour. That said if it is something that takes me 5 minutes & doesn't involve travel then I'm not likely to charge either. I'm not assermentée because I have a full-time job with completely immovable hours and am therefore usually not available for court etc interpreting.
Don't start me off - my main gripe with the 'bilingual' people that I know is, they aren't. They are very big on telling everyone that I don't speak the language but then it transpires that they only have a basic grasp - pretty much the same as me, actually.
Honestly, I met one woman when I first came who was trying to flog her services as a translator and general organiser. Then I heard her speaking French on the telephone. Pardon? Was a word that kept cropping up more often than I'd like to hear. She also looked like she was going to have a nervous breakdown (which is pretty much the same way I look when I'm on the phone!)
The only time you will get me to say "I speak French," is when I do - fluently. Which I'm starting to think will never happen!