by Stacey
When you are running a business, it is essential that you cater to each and every consumer. Otherwise, attaining the desired goal can be difficult. In order to reach to a wider base of consumers, it is useful to create a site that consists of information in various languages. Information provided in multiple languages can reach a greater number of viewers. Hiring a translator is an obvious option but it is also an expensive one.
Hence, online translation offered by Google.com and FreeTranslations.org becomes convenient options. They are efficient and offer free translation. However, before you choose any one of them, it is better you know their pros and cons and compare and contrast their features and performance so that you can get an idea of the quality of your completed translation.
Both the translators come from two of the world's most famous technology companies namely Google and Microsoft. As mentioned earlier, both come free of cost for the users and are there on unique web pages. Their aim is to aid the users with translations when working on a document or surfing the internet. They are also helpful when one is trying to understand a phrase or a word.
However, one has to understand that a machine translation gives the gist of a document but refinement is not to be expected from the translation. It is capable of plugging words together but is not capable enough to understand a sentence completely. It can be useful if you are trying to decipher whether a document contains particular information but it may not be of much help if you are trying to decipher how the topic is related to the document. Hence, neither of the translators can replace human professional translation. None of them are totally coherent and are not acceptable in any official or legal circumstance.
Their formats are almost the same. They have two rectangular boxes placed side by side on a web page. The box on the left is meant for entering the content that is required to be interpreted and the box on the right shows the translated content. The translators also give you the independence of simply entering the address of the website where the content you need to interpret exists.
Both the tools of free translation are adept at translating not just English but several languages. This gives you the freedom to interpret any of the available languages into any of their available renditions. Google Translate, however, is equipped to interpret quite a number of more languages with a capacity of translating in 63 different languages. FreeTranslations, on the other hand, is capable of translating in 37 different languages.
The following are the languages FreeTranslations does translate but Google does not: Hmong Daw, Klingon, Querétaro Otomi, Yucatec Maya.
The online translation tools have a special feature that is auto-detection. It enables you to auto-detect the language that needs to be translated in case you cannot identify the language. Apart from seeing the interpreted version, you can also hear the translated version through the 'listen' option. They also give you the power to rate their interpretations. The online translation tools also allow you to add a free widget to your own site as a pick for your visitors. While FreeTranslations.org provides free service, Google offers a charged one.
The accuracy and speed of the free translation tools are pretty identical. As they are much behind as far as their comparison with human translators are concerned, some errors are expected if the sentences or phrases that are being translated are complicated. In Google, you can choose words in translation to see whether there are any alternatives. This enables you to tinker with a translation if it does not sound right to you.
According to an article run by The New York Times, three of the most popular online translation tools were pitted against each other for an accuracy check. On being compared with human translators, they were found to be far from correct. However, Google Translate was closer to perfection especially in cases of Spanish and French translations.
There is a minor difference in the interfaces of Google and FreeTranslations Translate. Both free translation tools allow the user to pick the original as well as the target language of the content or the webpage from the drop down menus appearing at the top side of the page. Then the user can paste the content or the URL for web page in the left box and choose the part that he or she wishes to translate. The box on the right will show the translated version of the text that was entered in the right box for translation. Google Translate allows you to mouse over the terms you wish to have an alternative translation of. This is a very useful feature that is missing in FreeTranslations.org
In Google Translate, if you paste a link in the left box, another link appears in the right box that has a link to the translated web page. Just above the webpage, you will see a Google Translate toolbar. The original content is shown in a pop-up window if you mouse over the interpreted text on the page. You can enter a fresh URL by using the toolbar, alter the original and the target languages and click on 'translate' and view the translation or the original page.
Here is an example of translation of a fragment from Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' in Google:
"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! - When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."
"Declaro después de todo no hay disfrute, como leer! ¿Cuánto más pronto uno se cansa de cualquier cosa que de un libro! - Cuando tengo una casa propia, voy a ser miserable si no tiene una biblioteca excelente".
"Je déclare qu'après tout il n'ya pas de plaisir comme la lecture! Comment beaucoup plus tôt on se lasse de toute chose que d'un livre! - Quand j'ai une maison à moi, je serai malheureuse si je n'ai pas une très belle bibliothèque ".
The same lines translated in FreeTranslations.org:
"Declaro que después de todo no es que disfrute como lectura! Cuánto neumáticos antes uno de cualquier cosa que de un libro! -Cuando tengo una casa propia, voy a ser miserable si no una biblioteca excelente."
"Je déclare qu'après tout il n'y a aucun plaisir comme lecture ! Combien pneus plus tôt un de quelque chose que d'un livre ! - Quand j'ai une maison de moi-même, je serai malheureux si je n'ai pas une excellente bibliothèque. »
So, you can see that both the online translation tools are similar in their interfaces and also simple to use. But, still Google seems to be a better translator, closer to human translation.
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