how many people have used google translater and not been satisfied?

Answer 1

Machines can never do what the human mind can do;they can't understand nuance.

Answer 2

Probably everyone who has used it expecting a polished, grammatically correct translation. Online translation utilities aren't yet sophisticated enough for that. (Depending on the context, the German word "sie", for example, can mean she, they, [to] her, it or [to] it--how do you program a utility to know 100% of the time which translation is the correct one?) Over the years these utilities have gotten better, but not by much. And of course they can't be expected to compensate for spelling or grammatical errors in the original text--it's the old "garbage in, garbage out" argument.

There are two primary ways in which people can use an online translation utility. One, they're looking to translate from a foreign language into their own, in which case they'll get a good enough translation to get at least the gist of the original. An additional factor to consider here is that if you're translating lyrics that have been sung in a foreign language, sometimes the word order in a given passage might differ from how it would normally be given, and translation utilities aren't yet sophisticated enough to compensate for these differences.

Two, people are looking to translate from their native language into a foreign language that they're in the process of learning. The translated output then becomes a translation cleanup exercise. For example, while I have an intermediate command of German, it's enough to tell me when, or give me reason to suspect that, an online translation utility translating into German has translated a word wrong. Then I can rely on my own knowledge, or pull out my dictionary if I have to, and make the correction.

Any other use of a translation utility would be just a means of satisfying one's curiosity.

Answer 3

The best you can expect from a macine translator is the general gist. Language use (especially English) is too flexible to be defined by the yes/no (i.e. binary) rules that computers require from their software. There are too many spelling, grammatical and contextual exceptions to the 'rules'.

Besides, since so many people can barely write 'proper' English (don't know about other languages) these days (e.g. 75% of the questions and answers on here!), how can you possibly expect a computer to translate the input? "Garbage in, garbage out" still holds, even more so in this case.

Answer 4

I've never been satisfied with any machine translator. Do not use them; they do not give an accurate translation.

Answer 5

Internet translators are crap, they maybe able to work for single words but anything more than that will just be gibberish

Answer 6

it's hopeless at translating dutch to english (my company is owned by a dutch company and when I get forwarded emails from our MD, I like to translate whatever conversation has gone on before!!!)

Answer 7

I tried it thinking it would tell me how to pronounce foreign words, but it just brings it up in whatever language you wanted, which is absolute s**t!!!

Answer 8

Que?

Answer 9

I never use google. I prefer http://www.free-translator.com .