all about Google
all about Google translator
Google Translate is one of the most traditional software over the internet when it comes to translating any kind of word or phrase. This is because, over the years, the feature has added more than 100 languages to its portfolio and still ensures users enjoy speaker and pronunciation translation, PDF translation, and image translation (by Google Lens).
Although the site offers many positive points, no one can forget the negatives of this program, such as the inaccurate translation of some words or the difficulty of conjugating verbs. So, we have broken down a list of five reasons why you should not use Google Translate.
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1. It does not take into account the context of the word
Google Translate is programmed to translate texts literally, which is a big problem, because languages don’t just rely on direct meanings. In this way, the program does not understand sarcasm or sarcasm or even be able to process the same word for different contexts.
This is a problem because human communication is not always developed correctly, and sometimes it is necessary to introduce more contexts or implicit meanings – resulting in inefficient translation when text with these characteristics is sent to the translator. In addition, there are specific words that have a special meaning for some cultures, which is different from the traditional understanding that the rest of the people may have about it; Therefore, if it is used in Google Translate, it will definitely not have a good understanding.
2. Verbs may not be conjugated correctly
Almost all of the world’s languages have verb conjugations, and each has its own characteristics. Maybe that’s why the Google Translate programmers couldn’t create a model that could conjugate verbs in all possible tenses. Some languages, such as English, have more “simple” phonemic structures, so using them in a translator can be almost as effective. Others, like Portuguese, have a very complex verbal structure and always run into conjugation problems when the program translates sentences into our language.
This verb conjugation problem may not be the end of the world if you only need to understand what the letter or part of the text is about. However, if the goal is grammatical correction of a text that will be presented in an academic work, then Google Translate should not be a good choice.
3. Lack of cultural sensitivity during translation
Google Translate uses a pattern from millions of existing translations to process a word or phrase and find its closest equivalent in another language. However, the texts used as a basis are not filtered by the software to prevent the reproduction of biased expressions. This detail even gained repercussions in the media in May of this year, when some netizens noticed that the translator had changed the words “Bro” and “Mano” to “Nigga”. The latter is a very racist English term.
4. Constant grammatical errors
There are different mechanisms used in online translation systems, and in the case of Google Translate, the main one is machine translation. On the plus side, the text will be parsed and translated very quickly, as the program tests millions of matching patterns to find the “correct” one for the user.
The bad side is that, for the most part, this machine translation does not take into account the grammatical structure of a word or sentence. Therefore, it is very common for users to come across words unmarked, with incorrect accents, and without proper punctuation (such as commas, semicolons, periods, ellipses, etc.).
5. Non-specificity in translation
Considering that Google Translate is one of the most popular platforms for online translation, it was expected that the program would provide a customizable version: the user would be able to choose the most suitable type of language and get translations through this configuration.
This function will be very important because it will be possible, for example, to request translations with only easy-to-understand words, translations with more scientific terms, translations in journalistic language, and so on.
Without Google Translate, what should I use next?
Even with all these issues, Google Translate can still be useful for simple and fast translations. However, in any more serious context, such as academic and professional environments, it is much safer to use an old dictionary and reliable translation services, with a human being who really knows the language behind the work.
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