Why do People Give you a Link to an Online Translator When you Ask a Language Question?

Question

Those things are GARBAGE! They can't correctly give you the MEANING of idioms. When Translating a phrase, the Grammar is NEVER correct. Obviously, if you have posted your question on Y! answers you are computer literate and well aware of online dictionaries/translators. I'm I the only one who fells that people who post links to the universal translator or use it as a source to answer your question are annoying? Who here thinks if you don't know that language, you shouldn't bother answering rather than giving potentially false information.

Yes, I do realize Y! answers is not a very credible source to begin with, but you online translator people are NOT helping.

Answer 1

In Italian we have a proverb:

Disse la merda, galleggio anch'io.
Said the turd, "I can float too!"

That's why. Because they know absolutely nothing. And they want to salve their ignorance with the comforting thought that if it's a skill they don't have, then it can't be a skill worth having: it's something you can just ask a machine to do, and it will all go away.

I am so sick of telling people that automatic translators are worse than useless - they just don't want to hear that. And you'd be amazed at how many questioners actually ASK to be referred to a "good" automatic translator. The problem is we're used to the modern expectation that whatever you want, you can have it, NOW, for no effort. It makes me so angry!

But we might as well piss in the wind at Lands End, it's wasted breath, isn't it? There's no teaching the supremely ignorant.

Thanks for the rant. Wish I'd thought of that question!

Especially for Italian speakers, have a look at this ... it looks like someone's taken NaturalBorn's advice to test the infernal machine out! The results are truly hair curling ...
http://it.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070329025936AAYhMLt&r=w#R8MvW2HuVjKymXiXscfe6FlrYN1edFOa0aeBPtFEn3UJhctTLubE

Answer 2

I agree entirely with your views !
The most infuriating are those that give a wrong answer and then back it up with an online translator as a source.

Besides trying to accumulate points, other elements come into play, such as getting an answer in first with a chance it will be chosen immediately, or trying to find an answer faster than anyone else irrespective of one's lack of knowledge. It is playing on the asker's naivety (who cannot determine which answer is the correct one), but sometimes there is a genuine desire to be helpful on the assumption that the asker may not be able to get any answer at all.

The sad thing is that, as has been pointed out earlier, the answer given by translating sites is frequently incorrect or misleading, and the person who gets it has not got the wherewithal to pick a correct answer, or the grammatical background to use the information provided.

What is really disappointing is to see a rubbishy answer picked rather than the accurate answers provided by genuinely knowledgeable people, or educated native speakers who really know what they are tackling. Although, to be fair, there are often experts , or "know all" natives who do make mistakes too. When I look at the profile of some native contributors, the spelling and grammar in their own tongue is often horrific, and the same people give advice (which is hardly better than a universal translator) on the English speaking site on the strength of their nationality.

In any case some people chose the answer that they like best because they like an avatar, or because they prefer to deal with their peers rather than teachers, "top contributors" or "foggies".
As you rightly say Yahoo is not an ideal forum, and the language questions have become rather trivial of late. Add to that the thumbs down given to answers in foreign languages, and French in particular simply because France is in the doghouse at the moment...So one's contributions become pretty pointless.

Answer 3

Totally agree, I always thumbs down anyone that offers a machine translator. Sometimes I have attempted dodgy partial translations from languages I don't really know, like Romanian, or searched Google to identify a language or a word, but I only if no-one has already offered a knwledgeable answer - and I always warn that my answer is just a first hint, and needs to be looked at skeptically! But it's still better than machine generated gibberish masquerading as an accurate translation.

Answer 4

I saw on Dragon's Den a man who had a business translating documents into many languages. He said that his company's online translator had only 70% accuracy, and he made no profit from it. The reason it's there is to lure people to the website... once there, you'll find you have to pay for a proper translation, or to be able to phone up or e-mail for a personal response. The proper translations, of course, have 100% accuracy, and can be any length, unlike the online translations.

(Maybe the online translations are designed to make you want to pay for a proper translation!)

Answer 5

I agree with you 100%. I am trying to help people here with "handmade" English-German translations, and other morons here point to babelfish or other online translators, or they even post the crappy translation results of those online translators without checking them one bit.

Hey, there is a very simple method to check the quality of an online translator! Use the same translator to translate your stuff in another language first, and then to translate the result back into your own language! If the translator really would work, you should receive your original text again, shouldn't you? Ever tried that?

Answer 6

You are absolutely right. It's amazing that people who barely know English think they are fluent in foreign languages because they can enter words in an online translator.

Answer 7

I totally agree with what Michael the top contributor has said re. translator & translation. I realize this is not exactly an answer, but the question is a bit hard to answer as nobody can really KNOW why some people do what they do.

Answer 8

Hahahahaha...I agree! I guess they're trying to be helpful, but I feel you when you say they're a bit annoying. And it's like these people troll the Languages section just waiting for the opportunity to use an online translator!
...

Answer 9

Im a native spanish speaker and I always do my best to help all the people who ask 4 help.

Those who only give links, are just trying to make "quick points" or they just dont know how to translate to other languages.

Answer 10

I totallly agree. If you even read these mechanized translations, you can see that they're nonsense. Nevertheless, a lot of people ask for translation websites, refusing to believe that computers are not yet able to translate. Yet they're not.