Given that I tend to rely on the help of Google Translate for some of my translations, I really related to this article "I, Translator". I wholeheartedly agree that the purpose of Google Translate is just to directly translate sentences, which proves useful when I can't read kanji, or when I don't know vocabulary. It is far too often the "correct translation", because when I can't understand a sentence and I input it into Google Translate, it won't understand the context and I still won't comprehend completely.
I really loved how Steiner said that "there is more here than meets the eye." To an extent, I agree that paraphrasing and translating can enlarge the stature of the original. I think in some sense, translating can be seen as a magnifying glass enlarging the text after squinting at fine print, because in some sense you can see the work as a whole, but still not comprehend the deeper layers, if any. After rereading the piece in a language you speak, I think only then you can fully grasp the big picture and view the author's intent (of course, not to the extent of the original given that translation will bring some details to light and omit others).
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