Google Translate recently added Turkish, Thai, Hungarian, Estonian, Albanian, Maltese, and Galician to the mix. The rollout of these seven additional languages marks a new milestone: automatic translations between 41 languages (1,640 language pairs!). This means we can now translate between languages read by 98% of Internet users.
Nearly every time I speak at a conference or have a discussion of any significant length about website localization, machine translation comes up. To date, my response has remained essentially the same: machine translation has its place, but not as a replacement for human translation. It’s still not even close. But it is steadily improving and is an incredibly useful tool when put to the right use.
One such use that has been exploding since the debut of Google Translate is the use of machine translation for a non-binding, gist translation of a website. This has been around for years, available through a number of providers, but Google’s name recognition and reach have made more site owners aware of machine translation and willing to give it a try.
If you choose to go this route as a temporary offering pending a quality human translation, be sure to include a proper disclaimer. You’ll find more and more clauses like this one around the Web:
Disclaimer:
For your convenience, this web site is translated into several languages using automatic translation provided by Google. No machine translation system is perfect or intended to replace human translation. The official text is the English version of this website. All anomalies, ambiguities or differences due to the machine translation are non-binding and have no legal value If the translated version of this website poses problems of understanding, or if you have any questions about the validity and accuracy of the information provided, please refer to the English version which is the official version.
Another very handy use of machine translation is to get a rough idea of what a localized version of your website might look like.
(Click image for full-size version)
I use it as I would Lorem Ipsum text in a page mockup, only it has the advantage of being in the target language and character set. You can’t count on string length being accurate to a final, human translation – and non-text copy isn’t translated, of course – but it is still useful as an instant preview.
No doubt Google will continue to improve the quality of their translation engine output. They have the drive and the means. And with their “Suggest a better translation” feature, they’re essentially leveraging their massive user base to build the largest translation memory database in the world. But in the mean time, the ability to get a gist translation and in-language preview of any page of copy across 1,640 language pairs is something I’m glad to have.
Translate between 41 languages with Google Translate | Official Google Blog
