The relationship between the critic and the artist mirrors the relationship between the translator and the language.

Consider: translators decode. Translators connect. They frame perspective of the speaker and contextualize within the culture of the listener. Great translators reveal depth of meaning. Beauty hidden in nuance.

Some, some garble the message. Mistranslate. Overcomplicate and over-formalize. Misread intent.

And some words are just untranslatable. You must read them in their native form. You must live as the speaker lived to hear her tongue in full.

Finally, you can communicate through a translator, but to hold a conversation you must learn the language.