jonreading

There is a scene in The Last Samurai, during the final battle when Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise's character) explains the battle of Thermopylae to Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe's character). In the explanation, Algren asks Katsumoto, "a million men... you understand this number?"

I think we make a great many assumptions when we ingest a foreign culture. That is, that we participate in the culture, but do not become part of it. Translations are a way in which we can ingest a culture but rely upon someone with [presumably] more experience to understand what is being communicated in a greater context than just content. As any dutiful husband will tell you, "That's fine," and "That's fine," communicate entirely different messages, even placing you in mortal danger. The context of the delivery is as important as the content of the message.

I like to think of translations as being "guesses" about what is being communicated, both in context and content. As since we are using movie quotes, I will allow Captain Kirk to clarify my position on the quality of guesses in a dialogue with Bones and Mr. Spock...
Kirk: A guess? You, Spock? That's extraordinary.
Spock: [to Dr. McCoy] I don't think he understands.
McCoy: No, Spock. He means that he feels safer about your guesses than most other people's facts.

There are some people whose guesses are better than other's facts...