Bible (Page 3)

See where your problem lies...
You and your companions failed to realize that...there is no and will never be a literal translation of a language to another…

 Anytime a translation is done into another language, the translator (who is only human) has to interpret the meaning and render it in the new language. It is, by nature, an approximation of the meaning, since words and ideas cannot be expressed identically in different languages.

Read the below explanation as if you dont already know...

1. A single word in one language often has meanings that require several words in another language e.g, the Greek word angelos could mean either `divine messengers' or `Jesus' disciples'.  The English word `wall' could be translated into German as Wand (inside wall, partition) or as Mauer (exterior wall).  Word for word translation is out of the question.

2. Because grammatical particles (like articles, verb tenses, case markers, singular/dual/plural, etc) do not exist in every language leading to multiple ambiguities (from the perspective of a target language like English). For example, a Russian sentence literally translated as `Boy threw ball.' needs two articles in an English translation, either a or the for boy and for ball. Only the context of the sentence could tell us which to use for the English translation. Not using ANY articles at all produces nearly unintelligible English.  The Japanese sentence rendered literally as `Remove front wheel' could mean either `Remove a front wheel' or `Remove both front wheels'. Which is the correct translation depends on the context.
3. Because idioms that have obvious meaning in one language and culture may be completely confusing to speakers from another language and culture.