[hilbert42]

Whilst I do not know Hebrew your point is very well taken. It aptly demonstrates the sheer complexity of trying to achieve an exact translation between one language and another (in fact from my understanding of the problem an exact translation between most languages is nigh on impossible).

I both admire and pity translators who work for organizations such as the U.N. as they have to translate documents such as treaties and do so with great precision.

However, I suppose my major concern with translations is how sloppy some actually are—that is that errors in translation are not limited by structural limitations caused by differences in the languages as in your example but rather by sheer carelessness. Frankly, I'm fed up with seeing bad translation of subtitles from German into English. I'd be more than happy if I had a dollar for every time I've seen the verbs glauben (to believe) and wissen (to know) interchanged with one another during translation.

Clearly, to know something is very different to believe something but unfortunately it seems that significant numbers of translators find such precision unnecessary.