15 Things I Wish I’d Understood Before I Used an Online Translator to “Translate” My Business Report

**This is a fictional client account inspired by those who believe that the work of machine translators is just as accurate and reliable as the work of professional human translators. Hopefully we have given you something to laugh about and share with your friends, family, fellow translators and clients so they don’t go through the same ordeal as this businessman!

I wish I had understood how machine translation software works.

I wish I had understood that machine translation is a computer-generated process during which individual words in one language are simply substituted for words in another language.

If I had understood how machine translators work, I would have been in a better position to judge whether an online translator would produce translations that were suitable for my business materials.

If I had understood how machine translators work, I could have prepared myself for how poorly the software would translate my business report.

I wish I had understood that computers do not have the intellectual or language capabilities to tell the difference between this and that and this, which is why my translation didn’t make sense.

I wish I had understood what professional translators meant when they said machine translation is not capable of producing accurate translations and has yet to “come of age”.

I wish I had understood the fine print that said the resulting translation would only provide a “hint of the meaning of the original text”.

I wish I had understood how to do a back translation so I could judge just how poor the quality of my computer-generated translation was.

I wish I had understood that you definitely get what you pay for when it comes to translation services.

I wish I had understood how much time I would waste cutting and pasting our original document into form windows, and how much time I would waste copying the “translation” into a useable format.

I wish I had understood how expensive it would be to use a “free” machine translator.

I wish I had understood how costly it would be to repair the damage done to our reputation.

I wish I had understood that I could contact a qualified human translator who would not only produce an impeccable translation, but also provide solutions and offer alternatives that would have saved our firm money in the long run.

I wish I had ignored all the people who said machine translators will one day replace human translators.

I wish I understood that an online translator is no substitute for a human translator.

Those are the fifteen things I wish I had known before I tried using free machine translation software to translate my company’s business documents. Please don’t make the same mistake I did. Invest in professional translation services and get the work done right the first time.