I’ve not heard of that ‘translation’.
I like the PTS KR Norman translation, (in it he claims Dhammapada is the hardest text he’s worked with!) and am also fond of the one by Glenn Wallis as well as Ven. Buddharakkhita (BPS).
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You would not have seen the my free translation of Dhp 182, since I had written it one minute before posting. I was trying to pick up the sense of effort and difficulty which are explained in the commentary.
Here is the commentarial explanation, given in the Carter & Palihawadana translation of Dhammapada.
kiccho manussapaṭilābho
The meaning is: the attainment of existence as a human being is hard to come by, due to the fact that it has to be obtained with great effort through plentiful moral wholesomeness.
kicchaṃ maccāna’ jīvitaṃ
The life of mortals is hard because it lasts only a short time, even though one’s livelihood is [somehow] contrived, having engaged in constant [activity] such as agriculture, and so forth.
kicchaṃ saddhammasavanaṃ
Hard too is it to hear the true dhamma because a person who proclaims dhamma is hard to come by, even over many aeons [of time].
kiccho buddhānam uppādo.
The birth [appearance] of a Buddha too is hard to come by, is extremely rare, because the resolve to become a Buddha succeeds only after enormous effort and because the birth of one having [such] successful resolve too is rare even through numerous thousands of aeons.
The inspiration I had about the meaning of the verse, is that just like the life of men requires all the effort to sustain a livelihood, the arising of the Buddhas requires so many Bodhisatva lifetimes of effort in cultivating the paramis.
This is in contrast to several translations of the verse that make the arising of the Buddhas sound like a wonderful rare gift … sort of opposite to the meaning of kiccha. Like this one from Aj Munindo (Narada also uses “rare.”):
It is not easy to be born
as a human being
and to live this mortal life.
It is not easy to discern
profound wisdom
and most rare
for a Buddha to rise.
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Isn’t it great that here we are very early in our Pāli class and we have a few verses from the Dhammapada to work through!!
Back in 2005 when Gil Fronsdal’s excellent translation of the Dhammapada was published (Shambala press), I was asked by the US Buddhist magazine Inquiring Mind to write a review of this book for publication in their magazine. Amazingly, this review can still be found online here The Dhammapada: A New Translation of the Buddhist Classic with Annotations, Translated by Gil Fronsdal - Inquiring Mind, in case anyone is interested in reading it.
Here is Fronsdal’s translation of v.182:
It is difficult to be born a human;
Difficult is the life of mortals;
It is difficult to hear the true Dharma;
Difficult is the arising of Buddhas.
Very literal and very clear, in my view.
And an interesting aside: I was reminded just now in re-reading this review just how many published translations in to English I was able to find back in 2005 - more than 60! And there have been even more since, not counting all the online ones. Popular text, indeed!
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Being pretty old (pretty and old? 
), I’ve just tried to get familiar with ‘different looks’ only. My grey matter can’t handle all the declensions and conjugations. I’ve followed @stephen’s method of sentence analysis with a slight difference. 
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Can’t help smiling to myself that my method is similar to what you suggest, except the last one.
Instead of trying to do ‘real translation’, I write down the meaning as I understand it even though the sentence(s) may sound clumsy, especially when there are lots of modifiers.
After I’m sure that I’ve got the meaning correct, I’ll then adjust my English (or Thai) to make it sound a bit more ‘refined’ .
Again, thank you for your advice. 
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Thanks so much, @Karuna_Hong.
I’m not so great with Excel, so I’ve been using Word, but will explore your suggestion.
Here’s how I parse/work on a sentence.
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Where can I find the third paragraph in Lesson II, Reading #1? @johnk I’m having difficulty translating the sutta references in your answer key with SuttaCentral’s. I know the first two paragraphs are Dhp 182ff.
Ven. @Sobhana, moreover you were sharing all this wonderful info while you were leading a retreat! Because I saw all of the photos on FB today 
Ven. @Sobhana Do you think it’s “difficult” (in the arising of awakened ones) in the same sense as the chiggaḷayugasutta? Or am I getting off track with the Buddha’s teaching about how rare the opportunity to understand The Four Noble Truths?
These are the Dhammapada verses, together with links to many resources that our group at Dhammadharini collected, a few years ago. I hope it’s not a crime to share our gloss of the verses, since we had typed in several different published translations:
Dhp 182- glossed here
Dhp 183 glossed here
Dhp 5 glossed here
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Yes, that verse is confusing because the dictionary meaning of kiccha is “mfn. and n. 1. (mfn.) (i) causing trouble or pain; attended with pain or labour; obtained with difficulty; (ii) being in a difficult or painful situation; 2. (n.) difficulty, trouble; pain” (Cone), while the verse seems to imply “rare.” We can combine the two ideas with the understanding that the round of rebirth is dukkha. Waiting for many lifetimes to encounter a human birth or to encounter a Buddha would be dukkha.
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Thank you And I later saw your earlier post where you said it was potentially confusing!
The way you just explained it clarifies it for me.
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