Japanese Translation
私はその会議で通訳を務めました。
Don’t you need an article “an”？
I’m not a native speaker, but I think that with an article the meaning changes subtly, from being an interpreter to behaving like one. Consider the sentence: “I acted as a fool at the meeting.”
Pretty much. I would describe the use of “as” in a sentence like this as stating the role (or function) that the speaker plays in the meeting, particularly if the speaker is the only one performing that role. “I acted as interpreter” indicates that the person was performing the duty of interpreting. Similarly “I acted as chairman” would mean that you were running the meeting, “I acted as secretary” would mean that you were responsible for drafting the minutes (records) of the meeting, and so on. You don’t have to be a professional interpreter, just act as one for the sentence to be valid.
The use of the article would not be wrong. However it would be more common if you were one of a number of people performing that role. For example if one person in the meeting was translating Japanese and another was translating German, then it would be normal to say “as AN” interpreter because you were not the only one in that role.
Also, the article would normally be used if you indicate who or what you are performing the role for; for example “I acted as an interpreter for the people who could not speak Japanese.”
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