Lost in translation

Bourriaud brings to light translation in his book a lot. We have discussed it in class and I am still not fully onboard. For not only the social sciences but art as well; we must understand the cultural nuances in order to not separate ourselves from the meaning for another cultures message. However, if you go around translating everything does it lose some of its meaning? Take for example the English word Okay. We all understand this word and many other nations whose language is not English, also have adopted this word because it is so expressive. Another example is Doch, a German word that cannot be translated into a single word. Sometimes we simply do not have the vocabulary to understand the full meaning.