Who do I talk to?

On my most recent placement I had several patients for whom English was their second language. As a result, most of these patients brought a family member along to the initial consultation to assist with translation. This was extremely helpful and allowed me to extract the information I required for my subjective and objective. However, although it made the assessment easier in some respects, I found it difficult at times to know who to talk to. Should I talk to the patient? Or should I ask the questions through the translator? I did not want to appear rude, but I was unsure of what to do. To tackle this problem, I took a moment and came to the conclusion that the patient was the most important person out of the duo, and therefore I should talk to them and allow the translating family member to pick up when it was required. This turned out to be the right thing to do, and I received positive feedback from these patients as a result. Often patients feel isolated by their language, and find that people do not always take the time to talk to them as they assume they won't understand. But by incorporating body language and allowing the translator to step in as required rather than talking to the translator, the translator talking to the patient, patient to translator and finally translator back to therapist (although this may be yuor only option in some cases), the patient is able to be included as part of the conversation and the conversation flows naturally.