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There's a haiku, I think by Issa, that means approximately

A memorable thought.

It's been translated into several (more likely many) languages and I wondred how it turned out in French. I was surprised: in one translation I read the poet felt old already, not cold. But old makes perfect sense.

So who is right, or neither? I don't know Japanese, so I turned to Google translate. The Japanese is

Google gives

autumn... stand ..when... say... only... but... cold... wonder (or feel)

So it looks like the English version is more accurate.

Why is the French different then? My theory is that the translator did not go Japanese -> French but Japanese -> English -> French, and either decided 'old' was better poetry, or just typed 'cold' as 'old' by mistake.

Going through an intermediate (I think it's called 'vehicular') language is very common, in fact it's the basis of most translation. If (say) a news report originates in Tamil and is broadcast on Faroese TV it's unlikely anyone who speaks both languages is involved. It was first translated into English, then from into Farosese.

Incidentally the haiku reminds me a bit of those psychological experiments where half the participants were exposed to words associated with youth and vigor and the other half to words associated with age and decrepitude. The researchers (as psychological researchers tend to) gave the participants an explanation of the experiment (for example that they were testing word recall) that concealed the real investigation, which was to find out if hearing words about old age makes you act more like someone old.

And it does. Although the age profile of each group was the same, as the subjects left the room where the dummy experiment had been held, experimenters surreptitiously measured how long it took them to exit the building. The group exposed to words to do with old aged moved significantly slower.

It probably works with cold as well. Try this

Frozen, icy, frigid, winter, hail, cold, wind, glacial, blizzard, frost, snow, skating, chilblains, sleet

You might not consciously feel chilly but if you went to the shops now you'd be more likely to put a coat on!