Translation also requires you to produce a style that is consistent with the source material. Professional translation is used to produce a similar quality document as the source material.<p>If you translate english legalese into Spanish, you expect Spanish legalese output.<p>Writing skills and specific domain experience is necessary. That is easier to achieve that level in your native language living in the target country.<p>Nowadays, translator are rarely used for &quot;meaning translation&quot; ( like translating journal article for the managers ) as there is always some foreigner guy speaking that language and able to &quot;explain&quot; rather than translate the material. Except for less common language like Hebrew, Japanese, ... or big governmental organisations.<p>BTW I think the requirement is reversed for interpretation. You need to be native of the source language, because you need to convey the meaning regardless of the form.