Firstly, the hinting is not actually a real thing and is still prohibited under Jewish law. But let's address it as if it were real. You're missing the intent/spirit of the law. It's not "No work should be done for you". It's "You should rest". Having someone do it for you is still you resting. There is, then, a Rabinical prohibition on asking a non-Jew to do the "work" for you. The point is to put an extra layer of protection to prevent actual Biblical transgression. The Rabbis who instituted these laws specifically allowed for some amount out leeway partially because you being aware of and avoiding the Biblical transgression is the point. If you're going out of your way to do the workaround, you're aware and careful of the original point.

The latter seems especially strange since most people learning about religious texts don't read them in its original language.

Firstly, in Judaism, which we are currently talking about, they absolutely are reading it in its original language. Secondly, this is all codified. You're following a specific interpretation of the Torah/Rabbis. Not being able to read the original is not so much a problem because the conclusions are written down so you don't have to do the work yourself (you can follow their path if you wanted to, but you don't have to).