{"id":16398,"date":"2023-09-19T13:23:29","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T11:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/?p=16398"},"modified":"2023-11-08T07:01:03","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T06:01:03","slug":"is-google-translate-accurate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/","title":{"rendered":"Research vs Practice: How Accurate Is Google Translate?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div id=\"acf\/text-block_38ce5da4909b25ee059fd45b8c992af6\" class=\"pxblock pxblock--text alignfull spacing--default bg--white\">\n\n\t\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"wysiwyg animate-in\">\n\t\t\t<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s been quite a bit of talk about the effectiveness of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/machine-translation\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">machine translation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (MT), especially when translating complex or nuanced language expressions. However, thanks to technological advancements, MT tools have become more accurate and, in some cases, even match human translation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google Translate has been a pioneer in machine translation technology, but it&#8217;s facing more and more competition from rivals like DeepL and Amazon Translate. Let&#8217;s explore Google Translate&#8217;s accuracy, its performance against competitors, and some best practices for using it effectively.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_69_1 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Overview<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#the-evolution-of-machine-translation-technology\" title=\"The evolution of machine translation technology\">The evolution of machine translation technology<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#from-statistical-models-to-deep-learning-in-translation-technology\" title=\"From statistical models to deep learning in translation technology\">From statistical models to deep learning in translation technology<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#how-google-translates-accuracy-improved-over-time\" title=\"How Google Translate\u2019s accuracy improved over time\">How Google Translate\u2019s accuracy improved over time<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#the-rise-of-neural-machine-translation\" title=\"The rise of neural machine translation\">The rise of neural machine translation<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#google-translates-transformer-model\" title=\"Google Translate&#8217;s Transformer model\">Google Translate&#8217;s Transformer model<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#google-translate-accuracy-overview\" title=\"Google Translate accuracy overview\">Google Translate accuracy overview<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#how-do-you-assess-google-translates-performance\" title=\"How do you assess Google Translate&#8217;s performance?\">How do you assess Google Translate&#8217;s performance?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-8\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#can-you-trust-google-translate\" title=\"Can you trust Google Translate?\">Can you trust Google Translate?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-9\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#does-google-translate-have-any-major-competitors\" title=\"Does Google Translate have any major competitors?\">Does Google Translate have any major competitors?<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-10\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#amazon-translate\" title=\"Amazon Translate\">Amazon Translate<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-11\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#deepl\" title=\"DeepL\">DeepL<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-12\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#systran-translate\" title=\"Systran Translate\">Systran Translate<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-13\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#microsoft-translator\" title=\"Microsoft Translator\">Microsoft Translator<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-14\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#tencent\" title=\"Tencent\">Tencent<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-15\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#will-google-translate-ever-be-perfect\" title=\"Will Google Translate ever be perfect?\">Will Google Translate ever be perfect?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-16\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/is-google-translate-accurate\/#how-to-use-google-translate-best-practices\" title=\"How to use Google Translate: Best practices\">How to use Google Translate: Best practices<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"the-evolution-of-machine-translation-technology\"><\/span>The evolution of machine translation technology<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Since the dawn of ages\u2014the fall of the Babel Tower, for those who believe in it\u2014people have needed to convey ideas in languages they haven\u2019t mastered. This is known as \u201ctranslation\u201d and stands for the act of rendering text from one language to another.<\/p>\n<p>For that, one would usually rely on someone else, who not only mastered both the \u201csource\u201d (original) language and \u201ctarget\u201d (translated) language but could also be trusted to translate the meaning of a message as it was originally intended.<\/p>\n<p>This process can be costly and often impractical. Finding reliable translators can be challenging, costs soar, and above all, productivity may be low\u2014but it all used to work for centuries when no alternative solutions were available. The advent of computing tools in the 20th century changed everything.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"from-statistical-models-to-deep-learning-in-translation-technology\"><\/span>From statistical models to deep learning in translation technology<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Computers brought enormous improvements in translation with their ability to store already translated sentences and match them with new texts to translate. Different computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools were then developed, which significantly improved productivity. Nonetheless, even with heavily involving a CAT tool, matching pairs had to be reviewed in context, and non-matching pairs still needed translation.<\/p>\n<p>Machine translation (MT), which automatically translates non-matching pairs with the help of <a href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/artificial-intelligence\/\">artificial intelligence<\/a>, has taken translation capabilities even further.<\/p>\n<p>Also referred to as <a href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/automated-automatic-translation\/\">automatic translation,<\/a> MT quickly became available to anyone thanks to the internet, and many technology vendors began to offer machine translation services for free. It seemed to solve all the problems posed previously\u2014<strong>instant translation done for free<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>However, there are still some questions swirling around the use of machine translation software. How best to <a href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/how-to-leverage-machine-translation\/\">implement machine translation<\/a> into translation workflows? How much can you trust the translation produced by a machine? To what extent does MT properly convey the original meaning of the content? In other words, is it accurate?<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"acf\/blog-cta-block_a351ef72ae509781271a28063852eece\" class=\"pxblock pxblock--blog-cta bg--grey image--orientation-portrait\">\n\t<div class=\"block-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"image image--align-middle\">\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1811\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/present-future-machine-translation-study-cover-scaled.jpg\" class=\"attachment-original size-original\" alt=\"The present and future of machine translation study cover.jpg | Phrase\" srcset=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/present-future-machine-translation-study-cover-scaled.jpg 1811w, https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/present-future-machine-translation-study-cover-212x300.jpg 212w, https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/present-future-machine-translation-study-cover-724x1024.jpg 724w, https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/present-future-machine-translation-study-cover-768x1086.jpg 768w, https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/present-future-machine-translation-study-cover-1086x1536.jpg 1086w, https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/present-future-machine-translation-study-cover-1448x2048.jpg 1448w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1811px) 100vw, 1811px\" \/>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"content\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"subhead\">Download for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"h6\">Your up-to-the-minute guide to machine translation<\/p>\n<p class=\"small\">Learn about new technologies to improve machine translation output quality, the latest on MT post-editing pricing models, and how to best shop for machine translation.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn--outline\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/resources\/the-present-and-future-of-machine-translation\/\">Download guide<\/a><\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"acf\/text-block_413d60a5cef6dc769f9e9a6c9efe6437\" class=\"pxblock pxblock--text alignfull spacing--default bg--white\">\n\n\t\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"wysiwyg animate-in\">\n\t\t\t<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"how-google-translates-accuracy-improved-over-time\"><\/span>How Google Translate\u2019s accuracy improved over time<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Google Translate has been a key player in MT technology development<\/strong>, steadily improving in accuracy since its launch in 2006. In its early days, it followed rule-based statistical MT methodology, using a set of existing translations (corpora) to translate specific words within sentences.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The quality of statistical machine translation was fairly basic, and developers had to manually define and program what effectively constituted a large set of rules. Due to the low translation quality and high development cost, Google came up with a new MT model in 2016: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/neural-machine-translation\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">neural machine translation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (NMT).<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"the-rise-of-neural-machine-translation\"><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rise of neural machine translation<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instead of running a set of predefined rules from the start and inspired by the way human brains work, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/research.google\/pubs\/googles-neural-machine-translation-system-bridging-the-gap-between-human-and-machine-translation\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google Neural Machine Translation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (GNMT) is using neural networks to handle complete sentences as examples of inputs (source text) and outputs (translated text) to predict the translation result.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NMT understands context, can be customized quickly, and detects long-distance dependencies to improve the interpretation of meaning. Its capability to generate translations that resemble human output has made NMT today\u2019s industry standard\u2014with companies like German-based DeepL also competing in the market.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"google-translates-transformer-model\"><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google Translate&#8217;s Transformer model<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2018, Google Translate released its <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Transformer model<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which introduced attention mechanisms that revolutionized the accuracy of machine translation. By using self-attention layers to better capture context, the model was able to understand and generate translations more accurately than ever before.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Apart from computational performance improvements, the Transformer model has enabled Google Translate to better contextualize words and phrases in a sentence by providing insights into how the neural network \u201csees\u201d them. It<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> works with a variety of language pairs, and its accuracy varies accordingly.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"google-translate-accuracy-overview\"><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google Translate accuracy overview<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>A 2011 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.semanticscholar.org\/paper\/An-Analysis-of-Google-Translate-Accuracy-Aiken\/8aa9c1e0203f021dee244edade77ac1585f5c969\">research study<\/a> found that Google Translate worked well for many European languages but not as accurate for some languages spoken in Asia. The top 10 languages for translation accuracy with English in Google Translate were (from best to worst):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>German<\/li>\n<li>Afrikaans<\/li>\n<li>Portuguese<\/li>\n<li>Spanish<\/li>\n<li>Danish<\/li>\n<li>Greek<\/li>\n<li>Polish<\/li>\n<li>Hungarian<\/li>\n<li>Finnish<\/li>\n<li>Chinese<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In 2019, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/334523114_An_Updated_Evaluation_of_Google_Translate_Accuracy\">reevaluation<\/a> using the same input as the original study showed a 34% improvement in Google Translate&#8217;s accuracy.<\/p>\n<p>A more recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/269712979_Use_of_Google_Translate_in_medical_communication_Evaluation_of_accuracy\">study<\/a>, carried out in 2021 by the UCLA Medical Center, revealed that Google Translate maintained the general meaning in 82.5% of the translations. However, <strong>the accuracy levels ranged from 55% to 94%<\/strong>. Here&#8217;s a brief overview of the results:<\/p>\n<table style=\"width: 100%;\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%;\" colspan=\"2\">Accuracy levels of Google Translate for different target languages from English source content<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 50%;\">Spanish<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 50%;\">94% accurate<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 50%;\">Korean<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 50%;\">82.5% accurate<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 50%;\">Mandarin Chinese<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 50%;\">81.7% accurate<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 50%;\">Farsi<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 50%;\">67.5% accurate<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 50%;\">Armenian<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 50%;\">55% accurate<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>In general, Google Translate\u2014and most machine translation (MT) systems\u2014excel in languages with abundant training data and high market demand. This typically prioritizes language pairs involving English either as the source or target language, often favoring European languages.<\/p>\n<p>Asian languages, on the other hand, tend to pose challenges because of limited available training data and unique linguistic complexities less typical for European languages. That being said, the performance of MT engines continually undergoes retraining and improvement\u2014leading to changing levels of accuracy and fluency.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"how-do-you-assess-google-translates-performance\"><\/span>How do you assess Google Translate&#8217;s performance?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s a variety of evaluation metrics for assessing the quality of machine translation engines like Google Translate, with BLEU (BiLingual Evaluation Understudy) and TER (Translation Error Rate) being most widely used.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, those aren\u2019t the only metrics one can use to evaluate Google Translate\u2019s performance. At Phrase, for example, we have our own proprietary evaluations of<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> how Google Translate and other MT systems perform in terms of accuracy and quality\u2014and we carry them out once a quarter:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In our quarterly <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/resources\/machine-translation-report\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Machine Translation Report<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, we bring together the latest performance data for all of the major MT engines used in real workflows in Phrase TMS, the enterprise-ready translation management system within our Phrase Localization Platform.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We consider 2 key criteria from the start: language pair (source vs target language) and content type (domain).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to the latest MT Report, the top 3 language pairs used in machine translation projects in Phrase TMS are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">English-Spanish<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">English-French<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">English-German<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it comes to content type per language pair, Google Translate has achieved the highest performance scores in the following domains:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Medical for English-German (91.62)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Industrial for English-Spanish (86.01)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Entertainment for English-German (84.34)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The result is based on anonymized machine translation post-editing data collected in a period of 6 months. To gather precise MT quality results, we\u2019ve filtered translation segments to reflect the required post-editing effort as closely as possible: Either MT was used and post-edited, or the linguist translated from scratch despite the availability of MT\u2014suggesting that the MT quality was too low for post-editing.<\/span><\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"acf\/text-block_449763257551f39bd61d199450e55e76\" class=\"pxblock pxblock--text alignfull spacing--default bg--white\">\n\n\t\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"wysiwyg animate-in\">\n\t\t\t<p><script id=\"infogram_0_176ec1d3-04b1-4381-8769-e529960ade4d\" title=\"Google Translate Accuracy Charts\" src=\"https:\/\/e.infogram.com\/js\/dist\/embed.js?gFa\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"acf\/text-block_2648f033b813d88ade801b1d9fd7d10a\" class=\"pxblock pxblock--text alignfull spacing--default bg--white\">\n\n\t\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"wysiwyg animate-in\">\n\t\t\t<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The result is based on anonymized machine translation post-editing data collected in a period of 6 months. To gather precise MT quality results, we\u2019ve filtered translation segments to reflect the required post-editing effort as closely as possible: Either MT was used and post-edited, or the linguist translated from scratch despite the availability of MT\u2014suggesting that the MT quality was too low for post-editing.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"can-you-trust-google-translate\"><\/span>Can you trust Google Translate?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>As language and translation are both dynamic categories that intrinsically reflect processes\u2014not static phenomena\u2014accuracy should also be seen as a relative concept. Accuracy in translation will depend on the original intention of the author and the destination of the message. For example, expectations of accuracy in grammar, style, and register for an email will greatly vary from the expectations of accuracy for a novel.<\/p>\n<p>A frequently heard opinion is that Google Translate\u2019s free MT service is accurate enough for most users because they need to translate simple messages\u2014and what matters most is that the audience is able to grasp the sense of it rather than the complete \u201cnative\u201d message. It can then be considered accurate enough because expectations are low.<\/p>\n<p>As a rule of thumb, the accuracy of Google Translate&#8217;s free MT tool is less consistent when:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Used as a dictionary to translate single words: Google Translate struggles to produce an accurate result, i.e., as intended by the author, because of the many meanings a single word can have; this is true for English as well as for other widely spoken languages<\/li>\n<li>Translating familiar expressions that don\u2019t have a direct equivalent in the target language<\/li>\n<li>Non-verbal expressions are an important part of the message, e.g., when being ironic<\/li>\n<li>Grammatical rules aren\u2019t properly used in the source language or used differently in the target language, such as the subjunctive mood in English<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For business purposes, when a large amount of content needs translation across domains, Google offers its Cloud Translation connected system. Companies can either set it up themselves or rely on a translation management system (TMS) to fully manage it from day one. Cloud Translation offers customization features for domain and context-specific terms as well as the possibility to train custom translation models.<\/p>\n<p>Google\u2019s Cloud Translation offering <a href=\"https:\/\/cloud.google.com\/translate\/data-usage\">makes an official statement<\/a> that it doesn\u2019t use any content submitted for translation for any purpose other than providing the translation service. Nevertheless, it&#8217;s unclear how the company uses the information submitted to the free version of Google Translate\u2014or if the data influences business decisions in any way.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"acf\/blog-cta-block_67a8a072aed76ee86936c7e9fae35504\" class=\"pxblock pxblock--blog-cta bg--grey image--orientation-square\">\n\t<div class=\"block-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"image image--align-middle\">\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1204\" height=\"1204\" src=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/machine-transtion-report-key-visual.png\" class=\"attachment-original size-original\" alt=\"Machine transtion report key visual | Phrase\" srcset=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/machine-transtion-report-key-visual.png 1204w, https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/machine-transtion-report-key-visual-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/machine-transtion-report-key-visual-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/machine-transtion-report-key-visual-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/machine-transtion-report-key-visual-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1204px) 100vw, 1204px\" \/>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"content\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"h4\">Interactive MT report: Uncover top performers<\/p>\n<p class=\"small\">Find out how leading machine translation engines perform for different content types using the latest data in our quarterly machine translation report.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn--outline\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/resources\/machine-translation-report\/\">Get MT insights<\/a><\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"acf\/text-block_cf5c27ad99ccfa0fbf6b849528fcb9a8\" class=\"pxblock pxblock--text alignfull spacing--default bg--white\">\n\n\t\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"wysiwyg animate-in\">\n\t\t\t<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"does-google-translate-have-any-major-competitors\"><\/span>Does Google Translate have any major competitors?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>While Google Translate may be the first name that will pop up when discussing machine translation, there are several competing <a href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/machine-translation-tools\/\">machine translation software<\/a>\u00a0vendors on the market\u2014each of them offering a specific approach to MT.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of Google Translate\u2019s major competitors to consider when looking for the <a href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/best-machine-translation-engine\/\">best machine translation engine<\/a>:<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"amazon-translate\"><\/span>Amazon Translate<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Amazon Translate is part of Amazon Web Service, a subsidiary of\u00a0Amazon, providing\u00a0on-demand\u00a0cloud computing\u00a0platforms\u00a0and\u00a0APIs\u00a0for both individuals and businesses. It\u2019s based on NMT technology as well.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon Translate supports translation between 75 languages.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"deepl\"><\/span>DeepL<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/deepl\/\">DeepL<\/a> is a German-based online MT service that was launched in 2017. It uses a proprietary algorithm with NMT technology and can process DOCX, PPTX, and PDF files while retaining footnotes, formatting, and embedded images.<\/p>\n<p>DeepL supports 26 languages, forming 650 target-to-source combinations.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"systran-translate\"><\/span>Systran Translate<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Systran is a translation technology company founded in 1968 by a researcher at the California Institute of Technology. It\u2019s one of the first companies to start developing MT software. Its original objective was to improve the translation of Russian into English.<\/p>\n<p>Starting with rule-based MT technology, it developed hybrid RbMT\/SMT technology and has since then switched to NMT.<\/p>\n<p>With Systran Translate, you can translate into 50 languages.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"microsoft-translator\"><\/span>Microsoft Translator<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Microsoft Translator\u00a0is a multilingual\u00a0MT\u00a0cloud service provided by\u00a0Microsoft. As part of Microsoft Cognitive Services, it\u2019s integrated with multiple consumer, developer, and enterprise products.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft Translator supports over 100 languages.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"tencent\"><\/span>Tencent<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Tencent Machine Translation is the main MT offering by Chinese technology giant Tencent. The solution combines both NMT and SMT models.<\/p>\n<p>Tencent Machine Translation supports over 160 different language pairs.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"will-google-translate-ever-be-perfect\"><\/span>Will Google Translate ever be perfect?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Translation isn&#8217;t just about converting words from one language into another. If it were so, a dictionary would be the only necessary tool of the trade, and we all have seen the <a href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/5-examples-localization-gone-tragically-awry\/\">very poor (and sometimes very funny) results<\/a> of working that way. This is because a message isn\u2019t only made of words\u2014it also contains context, intention, non-verbal aspects, etc.<\/p>\n<p>That said, Google Translate has been rapidly advancing over the years, but it still can\u2019t do much that human translators can:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ask questions<\/li>\n<li>Understand context<\/li>\n<li>Catch irony<\/li>\n<li>Translate creatively<\/li>\n<li>Make considered choices<\/li>\n<li>Do research<\/li>\n<li>Observe consistency<\/li>\n<li>Guarantee completeness<\/li>\n<li>Deliberately leave out or include information<\/li>\n<li>Add glosses\/notes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>No one knows if and when technology can reach the human level of semantic acuteness, but that\u2019s exactly the goal for many. Quantum computing, for example, aims to increase the number of operations and data that can be processed, so one day it may be able to learn without human interaction and get a better understanding of the creation of language.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"how-to-use-google-translate-best-practices\"><\/span>How to use Google Translate: Best practices<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Google Translate has grown into a strong productivity tool that can save you time and spare you the hassle of looking for a good translator. Generally speaking, <strong>you can use Google Translate for texts that don&#8217;t need to be perfect in terms of style and consistency<\/strong>, i.e. for anything that won\u2019t make or break your brand:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Low-visibility or low-traffic content, such as internal documentation, website footers, social media posts for sentiment analysis, etc.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Repetitive technical content that only needs to be actionable, like instruction manuals, for end-users to access key information to solve a problem<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">User-generated content like product reviews, for which consumers generally don&#8217;t expect high quality<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Quickly perishable content, like chat or email support messages, customer enquiries, etc.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Large bulks of content with a short turn-around, such as hundreds of product descriptions that need to go live quickly<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Frequently amended content like feature and information updates<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Nevertheless, if you decide to rely exclusively on Google Translate, you may run a considerable risk of your translation lacking important information, meaning, or grammar. To avoid those pitfalls, it\u2019s key to review and adjust your MT output. This process is known as <a href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/blog\/posts\/machine-translation-post-editing-best-practices\/\">machine translation post-editing (MTPE)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Depending on the level of accuracy you want to achieve, you can apply light or full post-editing. Both approaches will give you the benefits of using MT output while ensuring that your message reaches the intended goal from the start.<\/p>\n<p>As a general guideline, the below cases require machine translation post-editing:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Product titles: They are highly informative and concise, they tend to contain proper names and polysemous words, and their word order is usually relatively free, which can cause ambiguity.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Translations between language pairs of dissimilar syntax, like Japanese and Spanish, because the reordering of words and phrases to well-formed sentences becomes more challenging for machine translation engines.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Product descriptions: They need to be well-crafted and clearly state the product\u2019s features or benefits without room for ambiguity.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Content of medium visibility that needs to be as accurate as possible: knowledge base, FAQs, alerts, etc.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Back-end SEO meta information such as image alt texts and captions: While their visibility is low, a human needs to ensure that the target-language keywords are present.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All in all, like all other free MT services, <strong>Google Translate\u2019s free MT tool is quite handy when you want to translate relatively simple pieces of text quickly<\/strong>. However, for an accurate translation that properly conveys the original meaning, you\u2019ll want to consider post-editing as the most effective way to use machine translation in the long run.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"acf\/blog-cta-block_640cf203ca17b\" class=\"pxblock pxblock--blog-cta bg--green image--orientation-square\">\n\t<div class=\"block-container\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"content\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"h4\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Unlock the power of machine translation<\/p>\n<p class=\"small\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Discover advanced machine translation management features within our enterprise-ready TMS <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and create new business opportunities worldwide more quickly and efficiently.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a class=\"btn btn--outline\" href=\"https:\/\/phrase.com\/solutions\/machine-translation\/\">Explore solutions<\/a><\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google Translate is a key player in machine translation development, but its accuracy has often raised doubts. Let&#8217;s explore some research and practical tips to make better use of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":2602,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_stopmodifiedupdate":true,"_modified_date":"","_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"class_list":["post-16398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-machine-translation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16398"}],"version-history":[{"count":132,"href":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94803,"href":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16398\/revisions\/94803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phrase.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}