Some pitfalls of translation

Before, you read any further it is important to note that this article is not for grandstanding or showing off some academic or intelligence prowess. I am just sharing a recent translation experience I had a couple of days ago, through someones Linkedin post. The post was originally written in French and translated into English. Some markedness struck me about the translation. Somehow I regard it as a "translation pitfall" that is a result of cultural differences or a phenomenon of pragmatics. So I care to share it with some individuals who translate/edit documents for a living or any other curious individual.

The part of the post read like:

"Today, I successfully DEFENDED my PhD thesis"..................I almost rubbished it as a bad translation or simply badly written work, because it did not make sense how one does that. I spent hours thinking, how the hell do you defend a thesis? How do you get past the proposal stage, only to defend a complete product in the end? To my sweet shock, I discovered that indeed there is a process called "THESIS DEFENSE" in other countries for M & D qualifications. It reminded me of the importance of inter/multicultural experience when you are a language or communications professional. One should forever open the borders of the mind, so the mind can cross borders of countries beyond culture, race or language. Inter/multicultural experience beyond books and the media is gravity necessary - its very important.