I’m mainly talking about watching a TV show or movie that’s originally in English enabling subtitles that’s either in Spanish, German, Russian, Finnish, etc. and can mistakes in translation still occur? I recall watching Lie to Me with Japanese subtitles during a scene involving an interrogation but a key word within the dialog was not translated correctly based on context.
For example, the protagonist said “You’re an accessory for murder” towards the suspect but subtitles used the wrong word choice 小物 (which means “accessories” as in small goods, i.e. stationery or trinkets) when the intended meaning for “accessory” from that context leans more on being a conspirator (共犯者 or 共謀) of a crime (like as in aiding the criminal).
My teachers at uni often said “To translate is to betray”. All translations have to make choices about what they want to preserve from the original and what to dish out. If you want to convey the exact meaning of everything you end up fucking up the rhythm and structure by breaking down each term into sometimes a whole sentence. If you preserve the length, which movie subtitles have to do, you have to use terms and expressions that match around 50% of the original meaning