What are your thoughts on google translate?

[DiesIrae]

It's good enough for what it is, a quick way to check on what foreign words/phrases mean. I don't know about paid AI language translation but I'm guessing they aren't perfect either. It's more of the technology not being complex enough to simulate all the different structures/grammar of how languages are. It's also good for giggling at some fail translations but it's okay, at least you can get the gist of what other people are saying.

[ghanashyam]

The trouble with translator is that English grammar is different from other languages like say, in Hindi an Indian language the HE and THEY are written the same way, say, VOH. The translating software is going to fail to notice this. In most of the Indian language the subject and verb can change the place in the sentence not like English where usually the subject comes first. Most of the insurance companies which want the police papers in Indian vernacular translated into English use the human brain rather than google translator.

[justusforus]

I used the translation to write a note to my friend who was sad.  I have never spoken Russian and wrote a heartfelt note.  A few days later I went to dinner with her and some other Russian friends of hers and they all laughed about my note.  Apparently "on" was translated to "in" and so on.  Well at least I made her laugh I found out (but that was not my intent!)

[evapfromm]

I wouldn't recommend google translate for anything professional, or even for homework. I find it works well if you are already pretty good in the language you are translating to. Or, if you are just trying to translate a word or two.

[Dame6089]

Google translate is a mixed bag for me. It is perfectly fine when translating a single word. It cannot, however, consistently translate complete sentences with 100% accuracy.

I found that in college I would type a sentence into google translate and then correct google's work. It was a way for me to do proof reading in the process of writing a paper.

[Guest isabbbela]

Google translate is a mixed bag for me to. It can help you a lot, but also give you something totally off and ruin the whole text.

I think it's useful as an assistance - when you can already speak the language at least in an intermediate level, and will be able to tell correct from incorrect, then it can help you big time. However, if you only rely on Google translate to get something translated, and have no knowledge of the language, chances are it's all wrong!

[ashwinr1]

Google translate is kind of fine. Of course it cannot replace the translation work of a real human! In absence of a human, I suppose apps like Google translate come in really handy!

[wholesaleblogger]

I know google translate is used many times in classroom settings and the professor (fluent speaking), knows that they used the translation site. It is not always correct, I am wondering why.

I personally love that facebook now has a translate feature under posts because many of my friends live in foreign lands and speak non english languages sometimes. It is nice to be able to keep up with them.

Do you think google translate is a good online option for translation?

Google translate wont be the be all and end all but while learning or indeed trying to understand something written in another language it does indeed help.. well mostly. I have found myself scratching my head in confusion though :-)

[Guest akasha24]

What I have noticed on google translate is if I want to translate a specific word, then it translates it correctly most of the time and even gives other suggestions for the word I translated but when I want to translate sentences, then it's translation is all over the place. It is no where near accurate so I only use google translate if I don't know a word and I need a quick answer.

[Alfonso]

It will be more accurate to compare Google Translate's translations with other translations from other websites like www.freetranslation.com and www.bing.com/translator.

[Preya_M]

I've used Google Translate a couple of times, but only when I was looking for singular words. It's not perfect with its translations when it comes to sentences. I tried using it once for a French assignment and the sentence made no sense to me, I ended up doing it manually with a good old French-English dictionary.

[MVent_20]

Using Google translate for one-word translations are okay, at times. But it cannot be relied upon if you are trying to translate a phrases, sentences or paragraphs. It translates the words individually -- not in the way the words were placed in the sentences.

[JessiFox]

I haven't personally had much luck with online translators...google based or otherwise. I guess you get what you pay for though, right?

[calebmelvern]

I just used Google Translate a little while ago to translate a page with Indonesian text. There were words left unchanged, and the English grammar is terrible. But there were a few sentences that were correct. While it is far from perfect, I would still use it simply because I think it's enough to meet my expectation, which is simply to make the page understandable.

[Miya]

So originally I was going to say that Google Translate is good for translating little words, but not entire phrases. But then, this happened last night while I was translating a Japanese word:

Really Google? Can't you do better than that?

[KC]

I do not see a purpose fpr google translate if it is incorrect. They should not provide people with the wrong information.

[viciosomundial]

So much hate in the past comments. I actually love it! :love:

I have impressed quite a few folks by saying simple sentences such as "I dont know how to speak *insert language* a lot, but I just know the most basic stuff." or something like that; and it is all thanks to Google Translate c:

Hey, it's better than nothing right? At least when I'm using it I got an idea of what the sentence or words are about. ._.

[pftsusan]

It's not accurate as I would not expect it to be, because there are many dialects of all the languages. I like it better than the others because google made their's better.

[Eddy3141]

Google Translate is useful for individual words or very short phrases, but not for full sentences, even if they're not too complex. There are too many variations in intended meaning, context of the sentence and grammatical rules. However it does seem to be getting better at this. Occasionally if I forget a grammar rule in German I will use Google Translate, not as a translation tool to mindlessly follow, but the results help me remember what the correct usages are.

[wrathfulgrapes]

I use Google Translate to do bulk translation, and then just go through it and fine tune any bits that need it. Sure, it's not the greatest translator available, but it's free, easy to use, and usually gives decent results.

[MyDigitalpoint]

While Google translate has still many flaws, I found a good way to translate simply phrases that make sense to you in your own language, but Google translate cannot translate.

The source to find this out is a website called linguee.com

Here you can type the phrase you need to be translated, and select the origin and target languages, to get in return a series of examples phrases translated into one language to another, from where your common sense and little (or lot) knowledge help you to select the best matching.

[akhdair]

I work as a freelancer translator, and Google translator not reliable at all to produce high quality translations.

I have professional dictionaries for different subjects. I only use Google translate to generate the meanings of a single word, but not for whole sentences and phrases.

Also, I have tried quite a lot of translation applications and programs, and they all function almost the same way as Google translation. The only reliable translation would be the human translation, which is not for free.

[whatupswags]

Google Translate has done a great job translating WORDS as individual entities for me with French. As far as phrases and concepts go, that's been another story! It's not too bad when translating French paragraphs (from work emails) to English; I understand the flaws and haven't had anything go haywire. But when I type something up in English and try to translate it to French - it's out of control! One of the main differences between French and English is in sentence structure (adjectives placement in regards to nouns, etc.), and it gets lost in GT. I tend to use it only for word-to-word translations, and it's been accurate 99% of the time.

[sos]

The answer for me here is yes an no. Yes because there are times that you do not have time to recall the  how you write in a certain language and really need to pass a message. However, it may lead to a lose  of people willing to learn other languages because they just need this software and the job is done for them.

[BritishGuy]

Google Translate is probably useful to me when translating one word or a sentence of about five words. Other than that, the results are massively inaccurate, either completely incoherent or it translates to something you wasn't planning to say.

I have a friend from Finland and I've given up using Google to translate from English to Finnish (he can speak English too) because every time I did, the sentences either made no sense at all or caused him to burst into laugher. At one point, somehow, Google had managed to translate a sentence about melons into a sentence about female breasts. Thanks for that Google.  :confused:

The paid translators are likely to be much better. The majority of them are translated live by actual people who speak the language, which is really what you are paying for.