jabay

I have had trouble with Google translate especially when trying to get it to translate Chinese. I have failed miserably on many occasions to get what i want out of it and so for me it has become a dormant tool. I am surprised to hear that other people are getting the best out of it. This is good news to be honest.

I would say that you should look out for the dialect. I would also look into getting into the slang and less formal versions of the language. Most of the times the written and formal version of a language are not anywhere close to what the normal fluent speaker of a language uses on a regular basis. Experiment and find ways of increasing your knowledge base.

This is really subjective to your grip of the English language. I would say to an extent that a person conversating with you would not lose hold of the meaning of what you are trying to say if you used either was or were. But i think that there is a certain level of fluidity in the language that allows you to know where and when to place were or was within that particular sentence.

I used to do some work a while ago where we had to translate scripts from English to different languages. By the time something had been translated into the other language, it not only felt wrong, but at times the entire meaning was distorted. I think that language does play a big part in ones life and a lot of things can go wrong when things get lost in translation.

Chichewa - Mabodza ndi ku nyoza