This article explores the experiences of people who need interpreters to gain access to and use of a range of services, drawing on semi-structured interviews with people from Chinese, Kurdish, Bangladeshi, Indian and Polish minority ethnic groups living in Manchester and London, UK. We describe our research methodology, and place the study in its political and community context. We look at the qualities the people we interviewed considered made for a good interpreter, and their experiences using both professional interpreters, and family and friends as interpreters. We show how personal character and trust are important in people’s understandings of good interpreting, leading them to prefer interpreters drawn from their own informal networks. We consider the implications of this for policy and practice.