What does one lose from reading translations vs. reading a language-original

>>9917943
Benjamin's “The Task of the Translator” is worth a read.
this has also been translated so heh

http://users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/deconstructionandnewmediatheory/walterbenjamintasktranslator.pdf

>>9917943
It depends on the text you're reading, and the quality of the translation. A popular text will have numerous more accurate translations compared to obscure texts. And philosophical text are better suited for translations, as the ideas of the text can easily be convyed in a different language. Prose, however, is a lot more difficult to accurately translate while maintaining the same levels of literary nuance (e.g. complex concepts or words that aren't easily translated directly).

>>9917943
See Quines indeterminacy of translation

>>9917943
yes Hegel uses language in a really special way in the PotS, he often takes words with double meanings (most famous example "aufheben", which actually has a tripple meaning) or uses word in the most literal sense, but it's not the case for all philosophers, I heard Kant is actually easier to grasp in translation

>>9917943
It really depends on the author. Hegel's Phenomenology is basically impossible to translate fully, although his minor, more conversational works (especially his trascribed lectures) can be read in English, French and Italian (I don't know if this applies to other languages). This can be said of Heidegger too, but not of Kant and Nietzsche, for example.

What if the translator doesn't "get" what the author is trying to say? Or if he's got some kind of agenda?