Machine Translations

Question

The last time I used Google Translate was about three years ago. I had a ton of translation to do so I would plug paragraphs in to it to get a base and then fix the errors manually. It was a way to at least get started, but some of the stuff it said was really funny.

Yesterday I went on it to get some french translations, and I must say, they have come a long way. Not only does it get most of the translation right, it also speaks sentences aloud in a pretty good accent. I'm not telling people to do their homework on there, but that it can be kind of fun to see the advancement of technology.

Answer 1

It has been quite good from English to Danish for quite a while.

I think it still depends a lot on which languages are being translated,.

I tried it with " emancipated Ocker " and it was crap. - ray76, Oct 30, 2011

Answer 2

There was an article in a paper (I think it was The Independent) about how translator machines work. They said when you enter your query - they look up EU and UN transcripts and give you the most popular results. I reckon this is why translators are almost always grammatically incorrect!

Answer 3

Well, yes, it has improved a lot with the development of better algorithms but bear in mind that we will always know when you use it jaja.

i don't disagree. Not just with Spanish, but tons of other languages. And you get pronunciation. - Beatrice-Codder, Oct 29, 2011

It has been quite good from English to Danish for quite a while. - ian-hill, Oct 29, 2011