5 Reasons Why Google Translate Isn't Good Enough

While Google Translate offers convenience, its limitations become starkly evident in the realm of website translation. Here are five specific reasons highlighting these shortcomings:

1. Partial Translation Alienates Visitors

Google tries to translate text visible to users, but without understanding the underlying code or functionality it often falls short. The more complex your website is, the harder it is for Google Translate to reliably detect and translate all your content. For example, dynamic content and complex web applications like pop-up overlays, lead forms, or booking engines are not found by Google Translate and if the content is not detected it won’t get translated. This leaves your website full of partially translated content which causes visitors preferring other languages to feel alienated and unappreciated.

Translating all this content requires more than just a one-time effort; it often necessitates a continuous translation process or a system that can handle real-time translation effectively. Just a few examples of this would be personalized product recommendations, account information, interactive forms, applications, searches, notifications, chatbots, customer support, and currency and time zone information.

2. Google Does Not Value Google Translate

Ironically, Google itself does not value Google Translate as an efficient SEO practice. In the digital age, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital for ensuring that websites are easily discoverable by the intended audience. Google Translate’s automated translations do not take into account SEO considerations such as keywords, meta descriptions, or alt texts tailored to the target language and culture. This oversight can significantly impact the visibility of a translated website on search engines, limiting its reach and effectiveness.

Google’s search engine optimization (SEO) system is designed to reward high-quality, original content and penalize low-quality or irrelevant content. If your Google translated website lacks fluency and accuracy or other content issues, that could cause high bounce-rates, shorter time on site, and overall poor user engagement. This can all impact your website traffic and SEO.

3. Translation Quality

Translation quality hinges on different factors for machine translation systems. The best quality comes when the MT is trained to handle domain-specific vocabulary, technical or specialized terms, and context. You will get the best quality and consistency by training the MT using data and branded vocabulary.

Websites featuring technical or specialized content require an exceptionally high level of translation accuracy. Google Translate often struggles with translating technical terms accurately, which can result in user confusion. This is particularly problematic for businesses, where Google Translate might fail to correctly interpret business-specific terminology or phrases unique to a certain industry.

In cases where your product or service is highly specialized, a direct translation may not always exist. This scenario calls for either more sophisticated translation technology or the expertise of a professional linguist, who can navigate the nuances and complexities of such niche content.

4. Legal and Compliance Risks

Many industries are rigorously regulated. A study by Common Sense Advisory revealed that 95% of consumers prefer products in their native language. However, this preference for localized content must be balanced with accuracy, especially when 74% of multinational corporations are governed by two or more regulatory bodies, according to a survey by Deloitte.

In the medical industry a mistranslation on a healthcare website could lead to misinformed patients and incorrect medical practices, directly impacting patient safety. In the legal sphere, inaccuracies in translating documents or legal information can result in non-compliance with laws, potentially leading to lawsuits or hefty fines.

According to the American Translators Association, numerous legal cases have arisen due to poor translations, with businesses facing significant financial losses. In the EU alone, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes fines up to €20 million or 4% of the annual global turnover for non-compliance, a situation where accurate translation is critical for multinational companies.

For regulated industries, accurate translation is a legal necessity. The risk of legal consequences means that automated tools like Google Translate may not sufficiently provide.

5. Poor User Experience

Google Translate may provide inconsistent results, especially with terminology. For websites, particularly those in specialized industries, consistent use of terms is crucial for clarity and professionalism. Inconsistent translations can disrupt the user’s understanding and trust.

Also, automated translations can disrupt the original formatting and layout of the website, leading to a disjointed and confusing user interface. This impacts the overall aesthetics and usability of the website.

Ultimately, the success of a website hinges on the user experience it offers. Inconsistencies, grammatical errors, and awkward phrasing – all common issues with Google Translate – can significantly detract from the user experience. A website that reads as if it were poorly translated undermines the professionalism and credibility of the business it represents, potentially driving away customers instead of attracting them.

How Google Translate Works

Google Translate, while often associated with language models due to its advanced language processing capabilities, is not a Language Model (LLM) in the traditional sense.

However, its underlying technology shares some similarities with large language models, primarily in its use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to process and translate text. Here’s a breakdown of how it works and how it can be used:

Machine Learning and AI

Google Translate employs machine learning algorithms, which are a subset of AI. These algorithms are trained on vast amounts of bilingual or multilingual text. This training involves analyzing patterns in the text to understand how words, phrases, and sentences are translated from one language to another.

Statistical Machine Translation (SMT)

Initially, Google Translate used a statistical machine translation model. This model relied on analyzing large amounts of existing translated texts to find the most probable translation for a given sentence. It wasn’t about understanding language but rather calculating statistical likelihoods.

Neural Machine Translation (NMT)

More recently, Google Translate has shifted to a neural machine translation model. NMT uses a large neural network, a type of AI that mimics the human brain’s structure and function. This approach allows for more fluent and contextually accurate translations because the neural network can consider broader context and subtler nuances in language.

How Should Google Translate Be Used?

• Document Translation: Users can upload documents to Google Translate, which then provides a translated version of the entire document.
• Real-Time Conversation Translation: The app offers a conversation mode where it can translate spoken language in real-time, facilitating communication between people who speak different languages.
• Image Translation: Using the app, users can translate text in images by pointing their device’s camera at the text, useful for signs, menus, etc.
• Language Learning: It’s a handy tool for language learners to quickly translate words or phrases and get a basic understanding of texts in foreign languages.

Google Translate’s Limitations

Despite these uses, it’s important to remember that Google Translate has limitations, especially when dealing with complex, nuanced, or highly specialized texts. It may not always grasp cultural nuances, idiomatic expressions, or specific context, which can lead to errors or less natural translations.

This is where human translators and specialized translation services have an edge, particularly for tasks like professional website translation, legal documents, or material where accuracy and cultural sensitivity are paramount.

The Bottom Line

Professional translation services like MotionPoint emerge as a beacon of efficacy. These services excel where automated tools falter, offering precision, cultural relevance, SEO mindfulness, compliance with legal standards, and an overall enhanced user experience.

The advantages of engaging a service like MotionPoint are numerous, ensuring that the translated content is not only linguistically accurate but also culturally resonant and legally sound.

Learn how a service like MotionPoint compares to free and insufficient tools like Google. Get a free demo and see what MotionPoint can do for you.