News Archive / Automated/Machine translation � put to the test 12.07.2010

If you are paying nothing for your translation, you can guess how good (or not) it’s likely to be.

The free automated translation tools can sometimes be very useful for getting an understanding of the text. But if you intend on publishing the text, this is the last thing you would want to use as the automated translations are very literal.

For example, there’s nothing French about french fries, but a translation machine doesn’t know that and you could end up with a very odd text!

Machine or online translation tools are exactly that: a useful tool for trained linguists, or just to get a vague idea of what something is about, but are no substitute for human expertise and experience. A machine will not accurately translate anything more than the simplest phrases, and we’ve all seen the results when what comes out is totally wrong!

Machine translation is a really quick and handy way to decipher emails, websites you are browsing, and similar short snippets where your aim is to get a vague understanding. These tools work best at translating short standard or formulaic phrases, as these are things that can be taught to a machine in the form of rules.

source: http://blog.web-translations.com

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