It's totally wrong, and I believe a majority of Japanese nationals trained interpreters believe that their job is to be a conduit of words, a translating machine better than Google Translate. But they, and you probably too, are assuming sameness. And you are totally wrong. Take the following example. I was involved with the presentation of a system for a client probing Japanese market and the potential to find a local partner. Although the service allowed by the system was very much similar to what is already available in Japan, patterns of interaction between the system/service and the consumers were totally different, worlds apart. On top of that, the presentation's document that had been translated into Japanese was using a common wording to explain it in Japanese, a common wording pregnant with a world of meaning that would not match the demo video that were shown them. Ad to this the "world is flat" fallacy and the assumption that even if both side could not communicate in English that made the presence of an interpreter compulsory, the difference lays only in the realm of language.
The presentation quickly turned awkward, and I quickly side-ligned brief suggestions to help it sounds more appropriate, that is more meaningful. The first in-situ rushed and hushed suggestion I blurred to my client was to invite him to stress that things being shown now were "of course" different from what exists here in Japan. One could argue that it would be a useless service. People know how to reckon for differences in life styles. Maybe, but not here in Japan. You have to stress that things, life styles, consumption patterns are different. You have to spell the word "different", then spell "some resemblances". Assuming that your Japanese counterparts know that things are different as a matter of fact, that differences are not mysteries but just that, differences, is wrong. In the introductory chatting, it is a good strategic thing to check whether your opposite sides have any experience traveling abroad for business, besides Guam and Hawaii, two foreign locations that do not qualify. For, despite the hours of TV shows showing foreign lands your counterparts have been soaked in, differences are mysteries, weirdness, beyond understanding unaculturedness runs deep. The mind is not set to nod without awes at things being different. It doesn't matter that you counterpart graduated from a famous local university. Unless they have had some serious business experience abroad, some serious student oversea staying experience, you will have to tell things you may believe are a matter of fact. A standard locally trained interpreter will usually do nothing but interpret. It will be a loss of money and considerable time and opportunities on your side.
A soon as I noticed that things were weird during the presentation, I intervened, at several times. Over the week, we rehashed the same presentation to some nine different businesses. Although the document was not modified, the stance and arguments were transformed so deep you would not recognized the first and last presentation as a talk about the same stuff.
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