3 reasons why you should avoid free online translation

There is no doubt that free online translation tools are making great strides and are regularly used for understanding texts in unknown languages.

Unfortunately, for translations that are to be published or sent to third parties in a professional context, it is better to think twice.
Here are 3 good reasons to avoid free online translation, which I have chosen among many others.

1. Avoid costly translation errors thanks to online tools

Translation errors can be harmless and not have much impact, they can even be comical in some contexts. But on many occasions, it can cause considerable diplomatic damage.

On January 18th of last year, Facebook found itself in a very uncomfortable position due to a post automatically translated from Burmese to English about a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Burmese counterpart Aung San Suu Kyi. The machine translator had translated the name of the Chinese president as ‘Mr Shit’.

Facebook reacted quickly and acknowledged its mistake by expressing its deepest apologies. The company explained that the president's name had been automatically translated because it was not yet included in the Burmese dictionary.

But this was not the only case, Facebook's poor translations have already caused other similar incidents, even sending innocent people to the police station.

This very well illustrates that if you use free online translation tools, these mishaps could happen to you as well.

2. Avoid free online translation tools for translating multilingual websites!

It is a big mistake to think that a website can be made accessible in several languages by using only free online translators. But some people still believe otherwise or do not give it much importance, especially when it comes to private or non-commercial websites.

However, in the case of a professional multilingual website or an online shop available in several languages, it is impossible to rely solely on free online translation and, in fact, its use should be absolutely forbidden.

Some Chinese websites, including the famous AliExpress, have problems understanding this, as automatic translation errors can be observed in the English translations of their product descriptions.

When you sell items in an online shop and even if these products are of excellent quality, you are endangering your credibility with dubious translations carried out by free online translators.

When searching for products to buy, some users end up losing confidence upon encountering strange translations. Instinctively, they think of all the scams that are spread by email, or on various platforms, that usually share the same quality of being poorly written.

Therefore, a quality translation is a guarantee of trust, so it is always best to turn to professional translators or a translation agency like AbroadLink.

3. Translations from free online tools are not yet perfect

The Guardian dedicated an article to the limitations of automatic translation in its article titled: "Tech is removing language barriers – but will jobs be lost in translation?".

It offers an update on the advances of artificial intelligence in automatic translation tools, such as Google Translate. Furthermore, it demonstrates that machine translation has not yet managed to surpass humans in this field, far from it.

It also lists the many elements that are very difficult to translate with automatic translators: dialects, terminology, humour (for example, puns), etc.

The article also highlights the fact that free online translation platforms should support translators in their work, not replace them.

4. In translation, quality has a price

Protect yourself from low-quality machine translations and make your life easier by seeking advice from a trusted translation agency.

Translation quality is something that is worth paying for if you want to avoid being, at best, the laughing stock of the internet.