Translating On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur into Japanese: Exploring Variation

1. Translating voir ('to see')

This covers all translations

The verb voir in this sentence indicates not merely an act of visual perception, but a deeper intellectual or emotional perception.

All translators use the transitive verb 見る miru 'to look, see' or its related intransitive verb 見える mieru 'to be able to see' to indicate the meaning of voir.

(Shinsan's version, not counted among the translations because it is a free rendering, uses the verb 分かる wakaru 'understand' instead.)

As to the choice between 見える mieru 'to be able to see' and 見る miru 'to look, see', the former is preferred by the majority.

Those who use the 'if not look ... then cannot see' (見なくちゃ ... 見えない minakucha ... mienai) construction all use 見える mieru. (Of course, the verb 見る miru is used in the first clause, but in the sense of 'looking' rather than 'perceiving'.)

Of those who use しか shika 'only', two use 見る miru (in the construction 見ることができない miru koto ga dekinai 'cannot see') and one uses 見える mieru.

The choice of verb does not come into the equation at the translation ものは心で見る mono wa kokoro de miru. The sentence simply means 'one must look at things with the heart', without making any specific reference to the quality or type of perception that results.

Translating voir 'to see'

The choice of conditional

Translating 'things'

Word order: Placing the topic

Translating bien

Framing the sentence -- ということさ to yū koto sa