I don't think anyone would argue for word-level translations without any grammar - that wouldn't even be possible, since there isn't a 1-1 mapping between words

I don't think anyone would argue for word-level translations without any grammar - that wouldn't even be possible, since there isn't a 1-1 mapping between words in different languages. But for a translation, I think most people want you to do the minimum possible to preserve the original meaning. So no switching "ramen" to "spaghetti" because you think people won't understand.