As you know from reading my previous posts, I think free online translation tools are great… for certain tasks.
Use them for you own internal international market research. Find out what your competitors are doing overseas. Do some international product research. Try to identify cultural differences in international markets. Use them to simple try to get deeper insights into foreign cultures.
But… Never use them to write any sales content or sales materials. And think twice about relying on them for any other translations.
Having said that, using an online translation tool can be very quick and helpful. This is especially true if you are translating from a foreign language into your own language. You will probably see the mistakes that the translation tool makes and be able to decide what the writer was saying.
The Best Way To Use Online Translation Tools
There probably is no ‘best way’ to use an online translation tool, but I have a method that works for me. I use this when translating into a language that I can not read at all.
Need a name for the process? I think of it as the translate back and forth process.
I take one piece of text and translate it using the online tool. Then I take the result and translate the new text in the foreign language back into English.
Is this perfect? No.
Does this help? Yes.
This process can give you an idea where the software is stumbling on the translation.
Let’s Test The Process
As an example, I translated “For the first time ever, I have brought this group together for one, extraordinary event” into Russian using an online tool. When I took the Russian and translated it back to English the result was “I first brought this group together for its part, extraordinary event”.
Let’s see…
“For the first time ever, I have brought this group together for one, extraordinary event”
“I first brought this group together for its part, extraordinary event”.
That is not even close.
So I changed the original phrase:
“I have brought this group together for this extraordinary event”
“I brought this group together with this extraordinary event”
Another try:
“For this extraordinary event, I have brought this group together.”
“During this extraordinary event, I have already put this group together.”
Another try:
“For the first time ever, I have brought this group together for one event.”
“I first brought this group together for one event.”
A final try:
“For the first time, I have brought this group together for this extraordinary event.”
“The first time I have brought this group together with this extraordinary event.”
None of these results match the meaning the author first intended.
After working with the translation tools, I started to see that shorter phrases worked best.
When I translated “But that’s not all” into Romanian or French and back, it came back perfect. But…
Bulgarian: But this is not all
Finnish: But it is not all
Japanese: However, it is not the only
This phrase came up with 3 very different results.
I took another example, a much longer phrase, and the results I got were:
“We the people of the United States to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic welfare, to provide for the common defense, promote the general well-being, and secure blessings of liberty for themselves and our posterity, and create what made the Constitution for the United States.”
Can you guess what the original text was in English?
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More On Translation Tools
- How To Use Online Translation Tools
- Over The Counter Translation Perfection Not Here Yet
- Translate Server Error
- Translation Software – It Is Time To Question Old Truths
- Translation Widgets – A Small Step Towards Website Globalization
She is who I turn to when I have questions and you should too"
-- Chris Garrett, co-author of the "Problogger" book
