Have you ever been browsing a website and thought to yourself “this makes no sense” or “why would I ever…”? The reason for this could be the use of a machine translation service. Machine translation services can be useful in certain situations, but it is always better to have your content professionally translated. Below are three reasons why you should stop relying on machine translation.
1. Inappropriate or offensive content
The automated translation process doesn’t just fail to convey meaning, it often introduces errors that change the meaning entirely. In some cases, this may result in inappropriate or offensive content being posted on your site. If your company has a reputation for being polite, consider how this might affect it when customers see translated content that seems rude or inappropriate.
2. Missing meaning
Another biggest problem with machine translation is that it often misses the meaning of things. If you’re trying to convey an idea or emotion through text and come up with an accurate translation, you’ll need to do more than just copy the original text into Google Translate and hit “translate”. You’ll have to look at each word individually, understand its meaning, and then figure out how that meaning translates into another language. This can be difficult because words have different meanings depending on context and usage, so they can’t be easily translated by software alone.
3. Misleading results
Even if your automated translator does manage to get everything right, there is still a chance that the machine-translated version of your website will be misleading or confusing for visitors from other countries. For example, if you’re selling products that require assembly or installation instructions on your website, these instructions may not be clear enough for someone who doesn’t speak that language very well. This could lead customers to think that they’re dealing with an unprofessional business because they’re confused by what they’re reading on their screens.
If you want a translation that is as accurate as possible, human translation will always be the way to go. Machine translation might never reach the point where you can trust it completely, but if you’re willing to risk it then at least now you know what to expect!
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