The "embarazada"/"embarrassed" mix-up is really common and it always elicits the same confused reaction from people who hear it for the first time.

Yes, exactly. Even true translations can carry different connotations, and that's part of what makes translation interesting, that even simple sentences can lose some implied meaning in a direct, correct translation.

Yeah, even within the same language too. e.g. Awful vs Awesome and Terrible vs Terrific

"brazen" is closer to "osado" or "audaz" in meaning. "bizarría" (noun) and "bizarro" (adjective) are used in old texts and patriotic songs and implies honorable or generous bravery, such as that of a liberator.

and Chess

Like "knight to C3"?

Yeah pretty much it could be more if it was structured to at least explain the basics and then the way it usually works would just be for learning new words. But it's all like that and you just have to figure out rules by yourself

Maybe this is why the butter ran out to begin with - the message got lost in translation

What you wrote about a direct translation is what kind of loses the nuance though.

Imo it's good to be aware of both, but ultimately language is a tool to convey meaning. In some cases it's also kind of impossible to have it both direct and keep the meaning, e.g. english says "on the bus/train" while german says "im bus/zug". German does have a direct translation for "on", which is "auf", but in this case it uses "im", which itself has the direct english translation of "in the" in english. I don't think any dictionary would list "in" as a translation for "on", it's just an etymological quirk that a different preposition is used.

Or more extremely, something like japanese to english, 公園で会いましょう, let's meet in the park, would have to be more literally translated as "using the park as the location, let's meet". (And I don't even know if that japanese sentence is completely correct, just tried to come up with something for locative で).

It's just not practical to always include. Speaking a language means to be able to take a meaning and express it. Translation is deriving the meaning and reexpressing it.

I think the more direct versions can be very useful for learning though. And while nuance does get lost sometimes, it's often unavoidable.

That happens naturally after reading and writing for a couple of years(depending on how intensive is the practice of the language). Eventually the brain just merges Manzana, Apple, リンゴ or whatever with the concept of that fruit without needing to do mental translations.

Yeah because your foundation is better, seems obvious to me