| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: How do you use usually use Google translate (or equivalent) to assist your translations? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "How do you use usually use Google translate (or equivalent) to assist your translations?".
View the poll results »
| | | | Edward Potter 
Spain
Local time: 17:44
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
I rarely use Google Translate for my translation work. However, I find it useful when I am studying other languages.
I guess an equivalent would be Linguee/DeepL. I use it extensively for term searches and am happy with its performance. I know others don't like it at all. Perhaps it is a question of the language combination. Mine is Spanish-to-English.
| | | | Mario Freitas
Brazil
Local time: 12:44
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| Never use it for professional translation purposes | Jul 5, 2021 |
There is no excuse for those who insist in using GT for translation jobs. Every time I say this, many colleagues insist they can revise and fix GT's ultraliteral translations. I'm sorry: you cannot! Those who insist in it will run out of clients very soon. GT suggests the closest cognates or the first definition of the dictionary, something we learn early in our career not to do. No matter how good you are, you will not replace all cognates with the best solution for the specific jargon, and you... See more There is no excuse for those who insist in using GT for translation jobs. Every time I say this, many colleagues insist they can revise and fix GT's ultraliteral translations. I'm sorry: you cannot! Those who insist in it will run out of clients very soon. GT suggests the closest cognates or the first definition of the dictionary, something we learn early in our career not to do. No matter how good you are, you will not replace all cognates with the best solution for the specific jargon, and you will not rebuild all the sentences so poorly suggested by GT. If you do, why use GT at all?
However, GT is fantastic for the purpose it was meant, which is to allow people to communicate all over the world. I use it a lot for that. But when I start working, I turn it off.
Not even the people who created GT intended the thing to be used by professional translators. Why should we?
[Edited at 2021-07-05 01:46 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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I hardly ever use it but we don't have many resources for Maltese so when I don't find something online or in paper dictionaries (there aren't a lot either for Maltese), I use it to get an idea at least. Many words have to be left in the source language for Maltese as we do not have a word for them, so if I do not find on Google translate, I leave the word in the source language but in reality, I'd rather use the Maltese word if there's one.
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Danielle Crouch
Germany
Local time: 17:44
Member (2019)
German to English
+ ...
| Google Translate unnecessary for German to English | Jul 5, 2021 |
I was honestly surprised to even see the term "Google Translate" in a poll question. For my language pair (German to English) there are so many other, more reliable resources and dictionaries out there that I would never even consider using Google Translate. I have used DeepL before for a client that requested MTPE, but in my experience DeepL is much farther along and produces much better results than Google. Even with that said, my use of any machine translation provider for my work is very rar... See more I was honestly surprised to even see the term "Google Translate" in a poll question. For my language pair (German to English) there are so many other, more reliable resources and dictionaries out there that I would never even consider using Google Translate. I have used DeepL before for a client that requested MTPE, but in my experience DeepL is much farther along and produces much better results than Google. Even with that said, my use of any machine translation provider for my work is very rare (unless the MT content is provided by the client), since the creative part of translating myself is what I enjoy the most about my job.
Like Edward, I am more likely to go to Linguee, which I use on a daily basis in combination with several other sources including dict.cc, ReversoContext, and Siemens' electrical engineering dictionary. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Liena Vijupe
Latvia
Local time: 18:44
Member (2014)
French to Latvian
+ ...
I only use it to check my grammar (articles and endings) when I have to write e-mails in German and to get a better understanding of languages I don't know very well or at all. And I always choose English which is more reliable than Latvian, so the only way I can use it in my translations is the same as with a regular search.
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 17:44
Spanish to English
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My response would have to be along the lines of "All of the above", except for the "copying and pasting directly" option, which would be silly. As I see it, most MT is still a bit of a curate's egg, still at the "warts and all stage". Nevertheless, if used judiciously, it can be helpful.
Of course, according to some of the snootier comments BTL, that disqualifies me from being "a pro" - but hey! None of my customers seems to mind and I'm earning a living from it, so really, I don't ... See more My response would have to be along the lines of "All of the above", except for the "copying and pasting directly" option, which would be silly. As I see it, most MT is still a bit of a curate's egg, still at the "warts and all stage". Nevertheless, if used judiciously, it can be helpful.
Of course, according to some of the snootier comments BTL, that disqualifies me from being "a pro" - but hey! None of my customers seems to mind and I'm earning a living from it, so really, I don't care what anybody else thinks.
[Edited at 2021-07-05 15:15 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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I've never used Google Translate for translation itself. However, I have a German customer who, though she knows perfectly well that German is not one of my working languages, she sends quite often emails in German and I use GT to decipher them. I’m a frequent user of Linguee and Reverse, at times just to confirm a term or to find a synonym.
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Tanja Oresnik
Slovenia
Local time: 17:44
French to Slovenian
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I don't use google translate and such in my translations. I rely on my well-stacked library, my network of contacts in my fields of expertise and my personal translation memories. I do, however, use search engines to find resources, data etc.
| | | | | Scary results | Jul 5, 2021 |
Why? Just why?
| | | | | I never use GT for work | Jul 5, 2021 |
It can be 'alarmingly good', but it still produces serious blunders in my language pair.
Apart from that, it produces a distinctively Danglish style, simply because the source language syntax is different from the target in many ways.
Often, using Danish syntax in English is not directly wrong, and individually each sentence may sound fine. Others are simply clumsy in English, even if they are perfectly good Danish. A whole text of GT often screams 'non native', and sometimes ... See more It can be 'alarmingly good', but it still produces serious blunders in my language pair.
Apart from that, it produces a distinctively Danglish style, simply because the source language syntax is different from the target in many ways.
Often, using Danish syntax in English is not directly wrong, and individually each sentence may sound fine. Others are simply clumsy in English, even if they are perfectly good Danish. A whole text of GT often screams 'non native', and sometimes the meaning is ambiguous or difficult to work out.
I agree with Mario Freitas - you can't sort it out! It is much easier to translate from scratch. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Barbara Carrara
Italy
Local time: 17:44
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
| Proogle Translate? | Jul 5, 2021 |
Danielle Crouch wrote:
I was honestly surprised to even see the term "Google Translate" in a poll question.
I too was (mildly) surprised to read this new poll, given the nature of this site, which claims to be for 'professional translators'.
But then again, nothing seems to surprise me around here any more.
As to GT, I only use it when dealing with 'source texts' that had been clearly 'translated' into - say - English by non-native speakers. Luckily, this is not a common occurrence, especially since I normally ask to access any texts to be translated before I agree to take them on. This said, it has happened to me, in at least a couple of occasions, that some GT-originated 'source text' made it into an otherwise perfectly fine English copy.
The last time I used it recently here on ProZ was to get the gist of a few forum posts by a no-longer-registered user writing in a language I don't speak or understand.
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No pro ever would admit here to use GT or DeepL on a regular basis, I assume. Concerning DeepL, I would rather answer as Bill Clinton did on the question, if he ever smoked weed ("I did not inhale when I tried marijuana"). And there was another answer by Bill on the affair with Monica Lewinsky, if he considered a xxx xxx as xxx and his answer was "No" again.
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For random words, I find it useful to use Linguee sources.
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There are two main situations for which I sometimes use machine translation.
The first one is when I just stuck with a word that I think it's not my best fit, but I can't come with a better solution immediately, so I copy and paste my text on the DeepL and see that list of alternative words that it suggests, to see if it provides me some better idea, or just try to find the synonyms for the DeepL word, not mine.
The second situation is when I'm insecure about some segm... See more There are two main situations for which I sometimes use machine translation.
The first one is when I just stuck with a word that I think it's not my best fit, but I can't come with a better solution immediately, so I copy and paste my text on the DeepL and see that list of alternative words that it suggests, to see if it provides me some better idea, or just try to find the synonyms for the DeepL word, not mine.
The second situation is when I'm insecure about some segment I translated, and I copy and paste it both in GT and DeepL, to check the reverse translation, to see how I sound from another perspective.
Besides these two situations, I believe don't use these tools for translation, exactly, but more for terms research, along with many others, like Linguee, Reverse, free corpora, and so on.
I think these tools are super useful, you just need to be wise to know when you should or shouldn't use them.
[Edited at 2021-07-05 21:22 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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