Google Translate: Friend or Foe?

In the world of translation and proofreading, we are often on alert for a “Google Translate job” – a document in which the dishonest or incompetent translator has made unauthorised use of machine translation or simply a piece of complete gibberish. And as translators, I’m sure we’ve all had occasion at one time or other to have a chuckle at the expense of some particularly nonsensical phrase turned out by this tool.

Why, then, in a recent survey of professionals at Proz.com did 42.9% of respondents dub machine translation “a translator’s foe”? Perhaps, despite its imperfections, they too are noticing a growing trend for requests for machine translation post-editing at a fraction of their normal rates.  And as often as we protest that computers will never replace human translators, lingering doubts remain....

But can Google Translate be used in our favour? I’m inclined to answer “yes”. To a certain extent. For example, inserting a single term generates a rather impressive bilingual thesaurus, of sorts, from which to draw inspiration. And at the end of a long day, brain frazzled, faced with a typo that changes the meaning of the entire sentence, that little “Did you mean?” is a most welcome contribution. Almost the freelancer’s equivalent of a helpful colleague, sad as it may seem. Nevertheless, while I appreciate that Google Translate has its good points, when it asks me “Would you like to contribute a better translation?”, I’m afraid the answer is still “No, thanks!”

Lisa McCreadie is a freelance translator based in Edinburgh, Scotland, working from French, Spanish and Italian into English. After graduating from Heriot Watt University, Lisa set up her own business and specialises in creative translation (music, drama, cinema, literature and marketing.) She has enjoyed many exciting opportunities collaborating with companies all over world. For more information or to contact Lisa, visit her website  or see her professional profiles at Proz.com and LinkedIn.