I've seen some contexts where this is what's happening. IKEA instructions would be one, or I've also seen it in some board games, where things like cards will use icons so only the instruction book needs to be translated.
But in UIs you usually have to have some text equivalent somewhere, on hover or long-press or in a menu or just as text for screenreader users, so you don't generally get to avoid translation even if you take visible labels away.
