Thanks for all the purrs, but I don't think things went very well.

The headhunter told me this company was looking for someone who knew a
bit of Japanese (it's a Japanese company) who would work on
presentations, who would do some software programming, who would do a
little translating, and who would be writing documentation (among
various other things). I told the recruiter when she called to see if
I might be interested that my Japanese language certification is at
the Beginner level(1)

I arrived at the interview expecting one thing, and the next thing I
knew I was getting grilled in full speed Japanese and catching only 1
word in 3 (if that much). Later I learned that the job is for a 100%
fulltime full-on Japanese conversation translator. Nothing else is in
the job description. Obviously (to me) the headhunter never told the
company I was a beginner, and also obviously (to me) the job
description the headhunter gave me was a work of fiction.

So I there I was, caught in a major disconnect between what the
company wanted and what the recruiter told me the company wanted -
there's no way I'm remotely qualified for a conversational translator
position. Makes me wonder what the headhunter was thinking - surely
they don't get paid by the number of warm bodies they send in for an
interiew.

IMO it was a waste of both of our times, and I lost a day's pay too,
because I had to cancel a substitute teaching assignment to go to this
wild goose chase.

OTOH, I'm very glad to hear other people's interviews are working out
much better!

Jeanne, as directed by Natasha

(1) This certification is from having passed the Japanese Language
Proficiency Test level 4 of the 4 exam series.  This is part of a test
series offered once/year on the same day worldwide under the auspices
of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Japan Foundation
(see http://momo.jpf.go.jp/jlpt/e/about_e.html  and
http://www.jpf.go.jp/e/index.html)