Google Translate: How good is it ?
I wanted to analyze Google Translate – Google’s machine translation tool. So I took a more or less random piece of text and put it through Google Translate (www.translate.google.com). Let’s see what came out, and how good it is:
Here is the original text in English (taken from the www.about.com German page):
“The German fascination with Shakespeare began in the early 1700s when English repertoire companies crossed the Ärmelkanal to perform the Bard’s plays all across Germany and Europe. Ever since then the “Swan of Avon” has become an important part of German culture, entering the language (“Ende gut, alles gut”) to the point that one could almost believe that Shakespeare was German. If you think I’m making viel Lärm um nichts (“much ado about nothing”), you should read more about this topic, and discover among other things that the German Shakespeare Society is the world’s oldest such association. Then you can take ourShakespeare Quiz on the German titles of the Bard’s plays.”
Here is what Google Translate did with the source text:
“Die deutsche Shakespeare Faszination begann in den frühen 1700er, als englisches Repertoire Unternehmen den Ärmelkanal zu The Bard’s durchführen gekreuzt spielt in ganz Deutschland und Europa. Seitdem der “Schwan von Avon” ist zu einem wichtigen Teil der deutschen Kultur, in die Sprache (“Ende gut, alles gut”) bis zu dem Punkt, dass man könnte fast glauben, dass Shakespeare Deutscher war. Wenn Sie denken, ich mache Viel Lärm um nichts (“Much Ado About Nothing”), sollten Sie mehr zu diesem Thema gelesen, und entdecken Sie unter anderem, dass die deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft die weltweit älteste derartige Verein ist.Dann können Sie unsere Quiz Shakespeare auf dem deutschen Titel der Bard’s gespielt werden.”
My overall impresssion is that this is not a good translation. Let’s analyze why:
- Google Translate (GT) translated “repertoire companies” (plural) as singular, “thinking” that it was about one single company named “Repertoire” Corp., rather than many companies.
- The second sentence contains a mistranslation. The English stated that companies crossed the channel. GT came out with “durchführen gekreuzt spielen”, which makes no sense and violates basic rules of grammer in German. It would be equivalent to writing “carried out crossed played” in English, which is a mishmash at best.
- I find the third GT sentence baffling because it also violates basic rules of German and does not make sense (in German, in declaratory sentences, the conjugated verb is always the second element of the clause).
- “in die Sprache” should have been “in der Sprache” (GT didn’t handle case well; should be dative).
- “dass man könnte fast glauben” (it is possible to write that in German, but it sounds wrong. It should be: “dass man fast glauben könnte”).
- GT: “Dass Shakespeare Deutscher war”. GT fails to see that this should be in subjunctive mood, not indicative mood. It translated that “that Shakespeare was German”, it should be in German: “dass Shakespeare Deutscher wäre” (“as if Shakespeare were German”).
- The sentence that begins “Wenn Sie denken…” is good up to the second verb, which is incorrect. It should not be “gelesen” (past tense of read), but rather “lesen” (present tense of read). GT obviously cannot tell past tense from present tense, in context. Again, failure to comprehend grammar as applied to a specific sentence.
- The next sentence is good by GT; it remains in the present tense and there are no grammatical errors.
- The final sentence is a mish-mash and in effect makes no sense.
I think that in conclusion, while GT is capable of very, very fast translation, and gets isolated parts of clauses correct, there are far too many errors for it to be an acceptable translation, in my view. At best, it can be used for very rough “gist translation” (translation designed to get a gist of what the source text is about), but cannot be viewed as acceptable for anything above that in terms of quality. GT cannot handle tenses, moods, or basic grammar.
I think that in future, GT will no doubt improve, but I don’t see it replacing the human translator any time soon, and perhaps is best viewed as – at best – a tool for the human translator (and particularly for those with no knowledge of the language who just want a gist of what the text is about).
