Over the past decade, a growing number of businesses have slowly been turning to machine translation services like ‘Google Translate’ for their translation. While machine learning and translation has improved over the years, it is still nowhere near where it should be. Anyone who speaks and writes two languages fluently can quickly put a machine translation app or service to the test to determine just how flawed it is. But don’t take our word for it, we’ve listed ten reasons why machine translations, in general, shouldn’t be trusted.
# 1: A machine cannot distinguish between a literal phrase, a sarcastic remark or an idiom. Machines don’t know that some words don’t need to be translated literally and that can throw off the entire meaning or context in some instances.
# 2: Some words cannot be translated to and from another language recklessly because the translated meaning can be vulgar or culturally inappropriate. But a machine translation app does not understand that difference which could ruin a business or professional relationship.
# 3: Machine translators tend to miss out on translating keywords appropriately. The translator will end up missing some words in translation because the computer does not recognize them. It can be particularly true for slag or obscure words. But the result can be a translated sentence which is hard to understand.
# 4: Catchphrases, taglines, headlines, slogans, etc. all of which are critical to a brand’s image cannot be translated by a machine. As a matter of fact, some slogans or catchphrases can end up sounding obscene!
# 5: The quality of a machine translation is often very low. A machine does not analyze writing style, tone or characterization which can make the resulting translation sound like a robot at best.
# 6: Most machine translators have a huge problem translating languages like Chinese, Japanese, Malay, etc. so, you’ll end up with gibberish if you’re translating to or from these languages.
# 7: The grammar is always incorrect. Machine translations never get the grammar right. It’s something that software engineers and linguists have been struggling with for years and have gotten nowhere. It’s also a big reason why you should avoid machine translators.
# 8: Machine translators require that you identify the language that you want to translate. Even though most people know, many don’t. So, if you have a document and can’t tell if it’s in Mandarin or Japanese, then the machine translator will not work for you. Plus, even if you did, as mentioned above machine translators don’t work for these languages in most cases.
# 9: Machine translators are not culturally sensitive. A machine is not aware of the culture in France or what’s thought of as inappropriate in China. The resulting translation does not reflect that, so if you end up trusting the translation, it can end up leaving you red-faced.
# 10: The final reason not to trust machine translators is because they are always wrong! Whether you’re a business person or someone who is dealing with foreigners on a regular basis a machine translator will not work for you, ever!