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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On top of all the great explanations, I’ll add another factor: cultural context ads subtleties to language.
You see, the same word in two different languages might have small subtle implications in different languages. Even if the words are “direct” translations from one another (that is the word googled translate gives you) or even have the same lexical root, they might add different color when used in each language.
For example, “chill” in English has so many connotations, beyond being a relaxed person, such as “cool” and laid-back. So I’d you translated it to french outer Spanish you would loose most of the contest, and it would sound just like a relaxed person, without the extras color
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