Translation Tip | Don’t slipup by using online machine translation

Please, please do not use machine translation to create or proofread your translations because you will be just wasting your time. Online machine translation services are not at all very good and contain lots of errors and mistranslations.

Expressing Yourself Creatively

If you have a creative marketing campaign to communicate in a foreign language, or a book or a poem, how can you make the correct choice of words to express metaphors? So much of our language is made up of metaphorical expression that it would be impossible to have a good translation without some creative interpretation on behalf of the translator. Machines offer none of these nuances, nor can they explain to you the reasoning behind their word choice, as there isn’t any. You cannot ask a machine translator to express how you feel when you watch a sunset, nor to choose a suitable expression for Keat’s phrase ‘to cease upon the midnight with no pain’, for example. “Dying at midnight without pain relief” is simply not a suitable translation, but it is what a machine might suggest.

Translation Services

Fortunately it is now possible to have all your important documents translated by humans who are also fluent native speakers at a surprisingly low cost. It is certainly worth enquiring about translations services, as you may be surprised at how affordable they are. Professional translation is an academic discipline, and a highly skilled job, so if you want the best, ask for a professional translator rather than entering your text into the Russian roulette of machine translation.

For translations by created by humans please call us on +44 (0)1344 870700 or contact us.