google translate

[rz3300]

Well when it comes to online translations I have just learned not really to trust them all the way, and if you must use them, I usually try to use a couple of them and then compare to see what I can get for the closest translation (which is really a guess).  That said, though, they are certainly great for individual words, and they are super easy to use and pretty accurate.  For all I know there have been great strides though, too, for I have not used one in a little while.  Either way, though, I would just say double check and proceed with caution.  Thanks for sharing.

[KimmyMarkks]

I wouldn't recommend using google translate.  Many online translations (usually free ones) aren't capable of translating full sentences.  They are good if you need a specific word but they don't understand grammar which often causes the sentences they provide to not make sense at all.  The best thing to do would be to get someone to translate for you, someone who is fluent in the language. 

[GaeilgeGirl]

Ugh, don't get me started on Google Translate!  The only times I really use it is to refresh my memory on a word I know or check to make sure I spelled it correctly.  It doesn't understand context or complex grammar rules.  It's nice if you are learning a language and need a refresher, or you want to know how to pronounce a word (I'm not sure on this, as Irish doesn't have this feature on Google Translate yet), but it's not really reliable.

[Tripeo]

I used to use Google translator to translate full sentences back in the days when I was in the learning process, it used to be a mess because most people I talked to were able to notice of the grammar mistakes and whatnot. I really consider that translator as a useful tool for those who like searching up for words' meaning and that sort of thing, but I do not really think it's a good translator when it comes to full sentences, it just does not work with these.

[sillylucy]

I have tried to use Google translate for full sentences and I always got mixed up because the site will incorrectly translate one or two words and then you have to go back and reverse translate it. It an be so annoying. I find that just going on a forum like this one and getting a live translation works best for me when I am working with professional documents that need to be translated. 

[cardinals27]

Never use google translate when your are translating more than one word at a time. Even at that there are multiple ways to say a word and Google might not always give you the word most common way to say a word. When I was learning Spanish I thought it was easy to go to google translate and type in a sentence and then just be able to copy whatever Google said down. This did not work very well for me because for some reason it rarely gives the most accurate or correct way to say things. I don't mind using it if I am just trying to look up what a word like shoe or something is in a different language, but for sentences and more it is not worth it.

[OddVisions]

Unless your looking for a singular word or a basic phrase, then it's not a good idea to use Google Translate. It's not a waste of a resource, it's just that it often misinterprets what is needing to be said in the other language. In my experience, it's also been of no help with foreign idioms or slang terms. 

[hades_leae]

On 8/25/2016 at 11:03 AM, Bokyy said:

tor, and it has served me as an online dictionary. I am aware, it has a problem to translate some complex sentences, but for basic things, it serves perfectly well.

I don't understand how they can have problems with complex sentences, or just long ones in general, or even give back output from something that it does not understand. 

I realized the problems when I translated sentences or paragraphs to another language, and then back to English. It was terrible the results I got, and almost never nothing like what the original text was. 

[raulmedez]

From my personal experience in learning Thai, I found that google translate is best used for languages that are more "westernised" when it comes to large scale translation. Whenever I tried to translate full Thai sentences in google translate, the result is always disastrous. However, I did had quite some success using it to translate Spanish sentences. All in all, I think it would still be best to just use google translate as a back up translator and not depend on it completely.  

[rz3300]

8 minutes ago, raulmedez said:

From my personal experience in learning Thai, I found that google translate is best used for languages that are more "westernised" when it comes to large scale translation. Whenever I tried to translate full Thai sentences in google translate, the result is always disastrous. However, I did had quite some success using it to translate Spanish sentences. All in all, I think it would still be best to just use google translate as a back up translator and not depend on it completely.  

Well a back up is pretty much what I have come to use it as, and I know that I am not alone there.  It is just too unreliable to have it be anything more than that, and I agree with you when you say that it is best for a more "westernized" translation service.  I guess that is not really too much of a surprise, and so are some of the other apps and programs that I have tried using in the past.  The good news is that there are other options out there, so just keep looking.

[Ella Farmer]

After about 100 tries to get the right English result for jardin (Spanish) I enthusiastically shouted "Scheißdreck" (something like bullshit in German) which then translated to Chase Bank after which I crumbled into heaps of laughter.

[reverserewind]

I never use Google translate to work with full sentences. That's no good, even though the whole translation thing got more accurate slowly over the last 5 years. I prefer doing that word by word.