> furthermore some constructions that are short and natural in Japanese have no universally good English parallel
One of my favourite things that clearly makes sense and sounds natural in Japanese but obviously doesn't translate well to English is "that person".
Every now and then you'll see some line of dialogue in an anime where someone says "Oh no, if this mark is showing up then we could see the return of _that person_." - which appears to be a way to refer to someone in the third person who the speaker knows but the listener doesn't - a linguistic "he who shall not be named", or "at least he who I'm not naming at this specific moment".
One of my favourite things that clearly makes sense and sounds natural in Japanese but obviously doesn't translate well to English is "that person".
Every now and then you'll see some line of dialogue in an anime where someone says "Oh no, if this mark is showing up then we could see the return of _that person_." - which appears to be a way to refer to someone in the third person who the speaker knows but the listener doesn't - a linguistic "he who shall not be named", or "at least he who I'm not naming at this specific moment".
Discussion here, it seems: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/llpqxt/is_that_perso...