Why so many different translations?
On this website, i keep getting many different translations for a phrase.
then, i check with other translation sites, and get more options.
why are there so many different translations.? it is very hard to learn when you can't get the correct translation for anything.
does anyone know the most accurate translation tool on the internet(besides a human translator)?
5 Answers
I'll suggest the following experiment/challenge to you (in English), since you seem to believe that there is only one correct way to translate/say something: create a sentence (long or short) that can be expressed in only one way in English. I'd wager that any sentence that you can come up with, I can provide at least one different way to say the same thing in English.
Pepsiwriter- languages not only have different words, they work differently. So you can't just change the words from one language into the appropriate words for the other language. It won't make sense if you do.
Therefore we translate either using "formal equivalence", i.e. trying to make as closely as possible a word-for-word translation, or we use "dynamic equivalence", i.e. discarding the idea of word-for-word, and instead attempting a thought-for-thought translation.
Those two perspectives are one reason we have so many translations of the Bible into English. There are formal equivalence versions, dynamic equivalence versions, and many in between.
There is also the issue of words and their "range of meaning". Many words don't mean just one thing, they have a whole range of possible meaning, depending on how they are used.
Take the Spanish word "quedar". It is used for our English word "to remain", but quedar has a range of meaing that goes far beyond our word. This morning I read "los lepros quedan limpios" in Mateo 11:5. Here quedar is used in sense #4 in our dictionary- (llegar a ser, resultar). Our word remain has no such meaning, but it's a perfectly good use of quedar! (Yet another translator said los leprosos son limpiados...which means the same thing. Both are correct!)
I hope this helped.
I am an English-Spanish translator. "Traducción libre" (free translation) is something that not everybody can do. It is putting things in "black and white", it is saying things in a way everybody can understand. All internet translations are made from computer programs designed for this purpose and they are "literal", simply terrible.
This is why you may find different translations on this site , using different words, that at the end mean the same thing.
A sus órdenes,
Ricardo
There is no 'accurate' translation tool. Sometimes you can get the 'jist' of it, but usually not to the point where I'd be comfortable using the given translation. Computers can't get a handle on idoms (and I just used one). The online dictionaries are correct, but it usually requires humans to get it 'right'
Well, usually computer translations are very incorrect, some may even use old Spanish (you know, like Old English, but Spanish?) So your best bet would be to use the dictionary on this site. ¡Espero que sea gran ayuda, y buena suerte! 
