You see it quite often when someone will say ‘there’s a word for that…there’s no direct translation but it’s loosely like…’ then proceeds to give it a translation.
I saw one recently of kummerspeck, I think the commenter said it was ‘food you eat when you’re sad’ or ‘grief bacon’.
I would also like to preemptively apologise for my ignorance.
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I think you see the biggest discrepancies with Asian languages being translated to European languages. I remember reading about pissed off fans having discovered that an official translating company had cut out, or completely chopped up the translations from a Chinese novel. Reason being that Chinese is an old hierarchical language.
So the company was like “these people won’t know what gege means” and instead of adding footnotes or a guide, just either used the literally translation of “brother,” or changed it to master, or sir or whatever… Which makes it lose the entire essence of the situation ie the hierarchy and closeness of the relationship. That’s why people have to give you this long-winded explanation for you to get the essence.
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