I know you shouldn't compare people but here goes. I said in a previous post that my one and only French classmate couldn't make it to second-year simultaneous interpretation and she had to stick to written translation.

I think this is a pretty common feeling among interpreters: those without the language skills for interpreting have to fall back to translation. To be fair to Sarah L, she was talking about the rarefied world of simultaneous interpretation, where you really can't fake the level of ability required.

On the other hand, however, in my experience good interpreters rarely make good translators. The required skill sets are very different, even though they both involve "transforming" one language into another. Interpreters need to be very quick on their feet, adaptable, and have broad knowledge of a wide range of topics.

Meanwhile, translators need strong analytical skills and the ability to write well in the target language. Many translators claim that writing in the target language is the most important skill of the translator; I tend to agree with them, because this is the one that takes the longest to master. And no, I don't consider myself to be a top-level writer (yet), but I'd say I'm a solid journeyman. Luckily for me, writing appears to be one of the few skills that gets better with age. <G>

I actually used to interpret once in a while (strictly consecutively) for my translation clients. They were happy with my services, especially because I could interpret for the engineers and everybody could actually communicate (the full-time interpreters generally lacked in-depth technical knowledge).

I was paid around $600 per day plus travel and expenses, which was pretty good for me (although top interpreters in Japan make upwards of $1,000/day). Perhaps because I was working among the B-list interpreters, I never saw a big gap between the language abilities of the other interpreters and my own.

Although the pay was fair, I didn't like the work. I would always come back from an interpreting assignment completely drained, and need to veg for a day or two just to recover. I've always known that I'm not cut out to be an interpreter; I liked it mainly as a change of pace and an excuse to travel around Japan, but I was inwardly relieved when I moved to Okinawa and the interpreting requests dried up.

I've seen a lot of translation done by high-level interpreters, and especially when they're working into their B language (although they usually claim it's also an "A" language), you find all sorts of holes and little errors that would no doubt be passed over in spoken language.

I thus don't think that it's a matter of one group (interpreters or translators) having better language skills, but just that they work in entirely different fields, requiring very different skill sets.