I noticed an odd idiosyncratic in the way English and Japanese work in relation to the words 親 and 子. In English, you can say that an 親会社 is a “parent company” or a “mother company.” However, the Japanese子会社 has to be a “subsidiary” in English.
On the other hand, in my field we use the terms 親部品 and 子部品. A 子部品 is a “child part” but an 親部品 is, inexplicably, a “level one part.”
I wonder why English chose to eliminate this consistent pattern from our language.
Becoming a Translator 