>>43512
Can you learn Japanese scripture in order to read high-end literature? No. It's impossible. Not even Japs can do it. Can you learn it enough to read children's fiction? Would that be worth the 10k hours? Why learn Jap if you can learn any other language instead? How does learning symbols improve my understanding, that is as you say, lost in translation, in Death Note? These things that get (arguably) lost in translation are because an individual, not just the translator, but also you as the reader not learning the history, culture of the land/language, and history of the author. You advocate the learning of one language over all the others in the world. Why? You had to make that decision at some point, why did you pick? How long ago was that? How proficient would you say you are? How often is it useful to you in your daily life?
Let's take a look at something simple. A translated poem, 4 lines. Often people will complain the true meaning, or the rhythm gets lost (but not both). So in order to understand a translated poem. You'll have to read at least two different translations. But the essence of the poem will still be translated. But a poem itself can be ambiguous and that would require you to think about the meaning more than the words being used. Death Note is about a highschool kid. I can't find a single thing that would require you to learn an entirely different language. You would need to know that Japanese highschools are different than your own, that they speak a different language etc, but not the language itself. Video games are about playing them, you can pick up a random ps1 platformer that never made its way to the west and play through it just fine. Things don't get lost in translation, things get lost in conversion, when you read something, you'll forget things about it. The things I type out are already less complete than the thoughts in my head. You should read something again until you truly understand it, that has nothing to do with learning a new language, it has to do with your perception. But if as you say things truly get lost in translation, you should have some evidence no? I'll remain by my statement that learning a language does not mean you learned the culture and that only one of the two actually is important. Also read the translation that reads the comfiest, not the most accurate, at least in the case of this particular fiction. Enjoyment > Accuracy.