How to make a translated paragraph look less translated ?
I put a big paragraph in english into the spanish dict translate tool but how do i make it look less translated ? how would a spanish speaker be able to tell that a piece has been translated online ?
thanks
3 Answers
Of course a native speaker could tell the difference, online translators are great and useful but they are never 100% accurate!
If you're learning Spanish you will easily identify small mistakes the translator's made and you will be able to fix it. But sometimes there're errors we can't spot. I think a good thing to do is:
Try to do your own translation and THEN use an online translator. This way you can compare both translations and you can take what you thnik is the best from both of them to create your final translation.
If you're still unsure about your result, you can check here in the forums. There're always people here to help you.
First of all, most translators (even ours) know less than nothing about grammar.
Vocabulary is like the building materials that you use to construct a house, for example.
Grammar is like the architect's plan for how to put every thing together.
To properly translate you need to know not only the words, but how to put them together.Spanish and English have very different architect's plans. Most people try to translate word for word. That may work for some easy constructions, but once you leave the absolute beginner level, things get complicated.
In my translations I go more "idea for idea" rather than "word for word" I would advise you to get into a good Spanish class or getting some good on-line instruction. There are commercially available courses such as The Pimsleur Approach which you might check out.
You might submit some of your work here and let us correct it. We don't do the translations for you but we will make corrections.
Pero de todos modos, muy buena suerte con tu viaje al mundo hispano. 
Online translators can offer beginners in any language a basic idea of how to say something simple but beyond that they usually fail miserably in my experience!
Native speakers of any language use many grammatical structures, colloquial expressions and idiomatic expressions that cannot be translated literally, ie: 'word for word' but sound very natural to an experienced native's ear!
When a person starts learning a (any) foreign language they inevitably make many understandable mistakes and use grammatical structures that barely succeed in communicating their desired message ...a native could just about understand what they are trying to say but it is obvious that the person is either using an online automatic translator or is a complete beginner! 
When students learning Spanish start to observe and take note of the way that natives naturally express themselves and begin to incorporate some of these phrases into their own vocabulary bank and understand how to use them effectively as a native would, they begin to make progress!
One exercise that helps in this respect to practise translating from the target language you are learning, in this case Spanish, back into your native language (mother tongue) while taking note of the way that native Spanish speakers express the same idea in their own language.
For example, echar un vistazo a algo = to take a look at something (literally, to throw a look at something!)
I hope this helps
