Google translation may be a quick translation tool, but other than a fast rendering of the words in a foreign language, you should not assume that a machine translation is the best option for website localization or translation.
Any automatic translation tool is limited. You might understand the general idea of the text in a foreign language, but an automatic translation is far from being accurate. There are differences related to specific languages, and while some languages can be better translated by machines than others, you should still be very cautious before relying on a tool such as Google translation.
Any text may contain idioms which humans understand better than machines. Any language is continuously evolving so machine translations tend to be unaware of new meanings and text produced by them is often not up to date.
Even for small text size, Google translation may be completely wrong. Other than for casual use, a machine translation will not be helpful. Machine translation cannot discern context meaning the way humans can. Â Although a machine can translate most technical terms correctly, you have to make sense out of some words jumbled up together by a non-thinking machine. Only a human translator can render the style of a text. People who work on developing machine translations never assume that humans may be replaced, even if progress is being made in improving the texts translated by machines.
Only humans can understand the cultural component of a text and render it into the target language. Every country has so many variables which are involved in the process of communicating efficiently, that only a native speaker of the language can properly help with a more profound understanding of a text in a foreign language. Knowledge about differences between different cultures will help the process of a better communication. Something that may appear normal in one culture, can be offensive for other cultures. A human translator, who is very competent in both the source language and the target language, has become aware of cultural misunderstandings that can arise and work to smooth the differences and provide a helpful translation.
Website translation and localization made with the help of human translators will make the message accessible, usable and culturally suitable for the target audience. If you use humor in the content of your website, the target audience of the translation may not be able to understand it if the text is machine translated.
A human translator will take into account the register to be used according to the target audience. For example, if the audience is young and informal, more relaxed vocabulary in the translation will make the message more poignant. Use of wrong language for the wrong audience may lead to misunderstanding of the content in your website.
Using pictures in website localization is also important to render a particular message. There are subtle nuances that can be associated with cultural messages, so a person familiar with the culture in which the website has to be translated would be the best choice and reviewer of such a project.Â
