Originally Posted by
Walnut Sparks
I think my point is this: You can either assume that the audience understands the nature of the relationship, or assume they don't. If the latter, then whether you use the term untranslated, find a word in your own language to swap for it, or avoid including it directly, then you have to explain the cultural difference somehow, and if that's the case, then I don't think substituting, say, "senior" and "junior" in a school context, is significantly better. It still means footnotes or rewriting.
I suppose part of it comes down to the reader's preference. I prefer to trust that the translation I'm reading is reasonably close to the original, even if that means having to refer to footnotes to understand it. I don't find that too much of a burden or necessarily assume that untranslated words are due to laziness.