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

Step 1. The Basic sentence

The normal French word order is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). The normal Japanese word order is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) -- the verb comes last.

In Japanese, the grammatical status of different constituents is shown by 'postpositions' or 'clitic particles'. は wa indicates the topic; を o indicates the object. (Japanese does have the concept of a 'subject', marked by the particle が ga, but mostly this is automatically converted into a topic, marked by は wa, as in this sentence.)

As Japanese hasn't got an equivalent to on, I've added 人は hito wa 'person' as a topic. The object that we have chosen is ものごとmonogoto 'things'. This word is vague enough to render the idea of 'things in the world'. It's also simple enough for children to understand but quite suitable for use in even the most formal prose.

Subject	Verb	Object
on 'one'	voit 'sees'	les choses 'things'
Topic/Subject	Object	Verb
人は hito wa 'person' (topic)	ものごとを mono o 'things' (object)	見る miru 'look, see'

Not a particularly scintillating sentence but it's our basic starting point for arriving at the final translation.

Result:

On voit les choses

人はものごとを見る hito wa monogoto o miru

GO TO.... next: Adding avec le cœur | Where we started

VARIATION .... in translating 'things'