myreallife85 Posted February 7, 2014 Report Share Posted February 7, 2014 Google translate is helpful sometimes, but I always wonder why won't they do something to improve it to be more helpful. Many applications and websites are providing better services. I hope it gets improved as I need it much during studying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jubvman Posted February 8, 2014 Report Share Posted February 8, 2014 It's incorrect most of the time, understandable though as words can have different meanings when used in a different context. But I think it's great for just getting a rough idea of the text, as long as it's nothing relating to business or anything like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firelily99 Posted February 10, 2014 Report Share Posted February 10, 2014 Google translate isn't always accurate so I don't bother with it anymore. There are a ton of translation sites out there and all I ask from them is to be accurate when I use them. If they aren't then I put them on a personal blacklist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timeisrelative Posted February 13, 2014 Report Share Posted February 13, 2014 I think Google translate is great when you're on the go and need to figure out a word quickly. But if you are studying a language trying to learn the grammar properly I would suggests a different translator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tintiano Posted February 18, 2014 Report Share Posted February 18, 2014 I'd advice against using Google Translate as anything more than a guiding tool. It's simply too inexact. If taken too seriously, it can land one in a soup, and that's the last thing one needs when communicating with someone who doesn't speak your language. So beware of Google Translate and use it only for minor reference purposes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tersuss Posted February 18, 2014 Report Share Posted February 18, 2014 I can understand it's use and that for singular words like nouns etc it would be handy enough to use, however I would never rely on it to form completely concise sentences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peninha Posted February 18, 2014 Report Share Posted February 18, 2014 Whenever I need to translate something I use Google translate, but it's pretty much like Tersuss says, it's not good for complete sentences because it doesn't make correct grammatical structures, for that a person is necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cookiesandcream Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 I admit, I used google translate ALOT when I was in high school studying Spanish. But it does more harm then good I think. It's only good when you want to translate simple sentences like "I love dogs" or just one word. If it is a complicated sentence, it will not make sense at all a lot of the times. I remember making a huge mistake the first month of course where I just copied the translated text. It's always best to just do it on your own with the help of a dictionary in my opinion because google translator or any translator will not be 100% reliable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victor Leigh Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 I am fluent in a few languages so when I use Google translate, I can immediately see what's wrong with the translation. However, when I need to navigate my way around a website in a language I know nothing about, then Google translate is good enough to help me find my way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrei Punte Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 It's good for translating single words, that's its main use, at least for me. I do sometimes use it if I want to translate a lot of text, I put it in google translate and then I take it and rewrite it.. it's actually faster, for me, than translating it just myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tersuss Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 I think a totally useless tool, I typed in English to Hungarian, why did you move to letterkenny, the first two words that popped up were Hungarian and the last two said "child benefits". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emmanuel Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 Some languages simply don't translate well to others. There's more than just words to consider, there's sentence structure as well. I generally only use Google translate to get a gist of what a paragraph or sentence is about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedonologist Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 Some languages simply don't translate well to others. There's more than just words to consider, there's sentence structure as well. I generally only use Google translate to get a gist of what a paragraph or sentence is about.It's pretty good for individual words too, as it carries multiple possible translations and meanings, but I agree that it is worthless for serious translations. Still good for getting the jist of a piece of text though. I often use it for foreign news articles that are more in depth than their English equivalent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelicagapit Posted February 20, 2014 Report Share Posted February 20, 2014 Everytime I use Google Translate, it's never perfect and sometimes not all words are translated. Yet, it gives me a hint of what the phrase means, and I could say that I'm smart enough to put some pieces together to finally understand a certain translated meaning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cadence Posted February 20, 2014 Report Share Posted February 20, 2014 I personally do not like google translate too much.. I believe it translates incorrectly far too often. However I do use it from time to time to translate words or sentences in languages I don't know at all. I'd say it works to use it maybe 50% of the time but I wouldn't trust it to translate text for any serious use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caffajake Posted February 22, 2014 Report Share Posted February 22, 2014 Google Translate is really handy if you need to quickly work out how to say something, or work out a short phrase, or can't be bothered to look it up in a dictionary. It isn't great for longer phrases though, or for translating between languages that are very different to each other e.g. Japanese and English or Chinese (any dialect) and English. It's good for when I'm trying to word something in French and feeling lazy though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thestarsshine Posted February 22, 2014 Report Share Posted February 22, 2014 I personally love Google Translate! But only because it's hilarious to run a bit of text through it over and over again and end up with complete nonsense. As an actual translating device, it's pretty terrible, though certainly not as bad as back in the day with BabelFish.It is handy sometimes though, when trying to find information about something that is only really written about on a site in a language I do not know. It at least provides a rudimentary idea of what is being talked about.I've noticed a disturbing trend of young people, girls mostly, pretending to know Japanese and writing terrible fanfiction with all the dialogue in 'Japanese' that is actually just stuff they ran through google translate. It's pretty awful! But I guess part of that is that it's fanfiction... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gmac9100 Posted February 22, 2014 Report Share Posted February 22, 2014 In my opinion Google translate is wildly inaccurate. It's good for viewing web pages from a foreign country, but Google translate should not be trusted if you are doing school work, or something where you need the the translation to be 100% accurate. I would suggest you buy a program for that type of use. Remember that you get what you pay for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victor Leigh Posted February 24, 2014 Report Share Posted February 24, 2014 In my opinion Google translate is wildly inaccurate. It's good for viewing web pages from a foreign country, but Google translate should not be trusted if you are doing school work, or something where you need the the translation to be 100% accurate. I would suggest you buy a program for that type of use. Remember that you get what you pay for.You have a point there. So what do you recommend as a paid translation software? If it has a free trial, I would like to take it for a spin. Personally, I doubt if any software can translate properly, paid or otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CeliVega Posted February 25, 2014 Report Share Posted February 25, 2014 i think it's actually pretty good for something that costs no money at all. Translating softwares, no matter how good they are, never seems to be perfect when translating a large amount of sentences at once. Every languages has their own rules, grammar, ways of saying things, and to translate them well into another language requires extensive knowledges on the languages that are being used. Google translate works pretty well if you are only translating a short sentence or a few words. But who knows what might happen in the future? There's always room for improvement for Google. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeronimoMagalhaes Posted February 25, 2014 Report Share Posted February 25, 2014 Google Translate is a real joke, it can only help on a very basica level, it's not even clse of replacing a human translator. So never have him doing complex translations, because it can't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victor Leigh Posted February 25, 2014 Report Share Posted February 25, 2014 Google Translate is a real joke, it can only help on a very basica level, it's not even clse of replacing a human translator. So never have him doing complex translations, because it can't.That's right. I only use Google translate to translate single words. Whole sentences will come out as gibberish. I know because I have tried translating from English to Thai and I know both languages well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esperahol Posted February 25, 2014 Report Share Posted February 25, 2014 It is something that requires specific circumstances - for instance, if you are going to translate something from Chinese to English then you can expect quite a few errors. That said you should still be able to get the basic gist of the work. It also helps if you are using rather more mainstream sources rather than more estoric things i.e. using more common forms rather than something off the wall. So I honestly don't have an real issue with the software and actually don't mind using it for a quick look over something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greggreggerson Posted March 2, 2014 Report Share Posted March 2, 2014 Google Translate tends to go directly at translating a sentence. However, some things things are based more on idiomatic phrasing or sentence structure that differs from English. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baburra Posted March 3, 2014 Report Share Posted March 3, 2014 You have a point there. So what do you recommend as a paid translation software? If it has a free trial, I would like to take it for a spin. Personally, I doubt if any software can translate properly, paid or otherwise.I agree. I think languages are too complex for computers to translate, at least for now. In the far future, things might be different, but technology still is fairly new as of now even as much progress as we've seen in the recent years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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