Translations: Good or Bad?

Recently in class, we have been talking about the importance of translations of texts. What is lost in translation? Do the benefits of reading a translation outweigh imperfect translation and not being able to completely understand the work completely because of the language barrier? There are words and phrases that just don’t translate that may have cultural importance. If those cannot be effectively translated, then there may not be a point in reading a translated work because ignorance is better than an incomplete truth.
In languages such as Spanish there are three forms of “you.” The first is used when talking to someone older than you or in a polite atmosphere, whereas the second form is used in a much more casual sense, like that between friends, and the third is used when talking to many people that you are referring to as “you”. In English, there is no such distinction. “You” stands for all of those things. When translating into English from Spanish, this poses a problem because in Spanish because the different forms give a sense of a social hierarchy which could lead to completely different understandings in English and Spanish versions.
Do challenges like this mean that translations are useless and should not be read? Well, this is a topic that my class debated for a while without coming to a clear resolution. Translations can windows into the cultures of other peoples and can offer a perspective of that culture that cannot be understood by simply studying their history. There is a reason that people say you cannot be fluent in another language until you have immersed yourself within that culture because there are too many linguistic nuances that are impossible to learn in a classroom. At the same time, while translations can lead to alternative meanings in different languages, the same story can cause people to reach different conclusions within its original language. For example, Islamic terrorism has risen out of an interpretation of the Quran in Arabic. I doubt that authors would oppose these differing conclusions because they would only lead to dialogue about issues broached in their works.
You could argue that translations cause more harm and misunderstanding that they do good, but I would argue the opposite. They provide a new perspective of alternative cultures that is unattainable otherwise, and they create a dialogue from different understandings that can only lead to more complete understanding of a topic from an intellectual level.