There is an old classroom joke that writing in a foreign language is easy -- you should just put words in this language instead of English ones. It is only a joke, but when it comes to applying machine translation, surprisingly many people seem to believe it's true.

In fact, substituting words and word-combinations in one languages for those in another that's precisely what software for machine translation (MT) does. The result often is hm to put it mildly, far from perfect. WHY?

The Difference Between Human Translation and MT

A computer program, however complex, is not a human brain. It doesn't care for meanings of words, word combinations, sentences, paragraphs, or the whole text. It knows nothing about rhetoric and style. It diligently substitutes words and expressions taken from a dictionary (system of dictionaries) for those in another language. These dictionaries plus an algorithm to compose a sentence according to grammar rules of another language -- that's all what an MT engine consists of.

Every good translator (human, of course) will agree that words are only the means of expressing a thought; they are "tools" we use to convey some message. A good human translator has good intuition, can pick the right synonym; will consult an expert if he doesn't know something or in doubt. Being able to guess is also a purely human quality. Any professional translator is expected to be a good writer, because the translation should be as easy-to-read as the original, without "foreign touch" in its style. It is the thought that should be translated, not a phrase, not words. Everybody knows it...except a computer program.

So, the basic difference between a translator and translation software is that human translator deals with the meaning, MT sticks to the words.

To Apply or Not to Apply MT: Two Points of View

"Translation from English into Nonsense"

That's how some highbrow translators dubbed MT (these perfectionists look down upon anything less than brilliant). After MT most of the text turns into a mess which only an English-speaker can sort out, they say. So, why use MT if one should be good at English (!) to guess what the original text was about? What about credibility, they ask sarcastically, if the visitors' reaction varies from "ha-ha, what a mess" to "can't they afford decent translation?"

"It's Cheap -- and Better than Nothing, Anyway"

Webmasters and e-businessmen are practical, pragmatic people. They apply MT because they consider human translation too expensive and time-consuming. Besides, if you are not a bilingual, you can't evaluate the quality -- so is there any guarantee that human translation will be better? A general idea is enough to get interested, and MT gives rough understanding of what it is all about that's their point of view.

Who is right then? Like in most arguments, both -- and neither. To apply or not to apply MT depends on what you expect from your website translation in the first place. For example, ADVERTISING, when machine translated, suffers badly; often most of it turns into meaningless word-mash. So, if you are an e-businessman and expect a machine-translated ad or website to bring you lots of customers, you can be bitterly disappointed.

Sometimes I doubt whether many of machine-translated Web pages are supposed to be read at all. After all, a neat row of flags looks so cool

Will It Work?

Much depends on a language pair -- the more similar the languages are, the more intelligible MT will be to the reader. That is why MT will be understandable only if two languages are very closely related. For example Russian and Ukrainian, or Swedish and Norwegian. If their grammars are similar and there are a lot of words with corresponding meanings in their lexicons, MT will do its job pretty well.

Translation between less related languages will be funny; the less related they are, the funnier the translation. If we machine-translate the same English text into different languages, it will be more or less understandable in German; a bit less -- in French or Italian; Russian translation will be barely understandable (at best). As for languages from other language families (like Hebrew, Chinese or Japanese) be prepared that most of the text will turn into something meaningless, and visitors will have to solve a linguistic puzzle, trying to guess what you meant.

What should I do to make machine-translated pages more usable?

Take a close look at your MT software. Study how you can use it more effectively: for example, most of such programs offer various specialized dictionaries, and picking the right one can help a bit. Make sure that the program doesn't translate names like Brown, Wood, etc.

Pictures can be also very helpful. If your website is for selling goods, you'd better let the merchandise advertise themselves. Make the site navigation as simple as possible and less dependent on words -- it can be crucial for your customers who visit machine-translated pages of your website.