Okay, i hate french, i have this horrible teacher who picks on me. she won't let me move down a set and she treats me really unfairly. For example if somebody talks, she would tell them to stop, if i talk i'd get a detention.

Anyway translator is very good. I do every piece of homework with it and my teacher think im trying hard. Ha, that shows her. The only problem is that it's not all way write eg.
If you type in watch you will come up as wrist watch instead of watching with your eyes.
Other than that its pretty good

The reason it isn't always 100% correctly translated is because there are different word phrases and word meanings in other languages. There are also many other different words you could use in place of one word. For example, the phrase "Let's go to the movies" could be said the same way with two different word phrasing. I guess my point is be careful--if she finds out you have words down that you haven't learned yet (since the word translating isn't 100% correct, as said above), you'll probably get in even more trouble then before. Unless, of course, you're in a high-level French class were you've learned the various phrasing.

The problem with translators:

1} Words can have different definitions. The translator doesn't know what one. This problem mostly occurs with French, Chinese and German.

2} Sentences might not make sense. Translators use direct, literal translation, word-by-word. Better translators might be able to make some sense out of sentences.

I sometimes Google Translator and often BabelFish by AltaVista. It doesn't mess me up that much.

Only use the translator to translate a WORD that you can't remember, but have a vague idea of what it looks like. If you attempt to translate a one page essay, you'll end up getting screwed because words have different meanings, and the translator will probably not do a good job of conjugating verbs.

I have got to agree with the original post. Google translate has provided me with a much faster reference than using some other english-spanish dictionary, and though it isn't always 100% accurate, it sure is time-efficient. I can safely say that I would never had been able to right such a distinguished 150-word "journal entry" without Google Translate.

Plus, if you are actually understanding what you are getting in class, but just don't want to spend the time it takes to write something long like what I use GTranslate for, then double checking and correcting the mistakes isn't really that hard...

When I was studying French a couple of years ago, I often checked with Google's online translator.
Fortunately, I was quite good at French so I was able to work out whether or not the translator displayed the correct meaning.

My opinion on online translators are that they're not very intelligent and often display the incorrect meanings. It's best to use these only when you're really stuck or if you want to check something and know what you've written is vaguely right.

This post has been edited by sportytalk: May 28 2006, 04:54 PM

I use Altavista Babelfish or Google Translate when I'm at a dead end translating something from Japanese to English. I know what the words mean, but I can't seem to put it in english... I use it to get suggestions and work it out somehow.

I generally use it as a last resort because it usually gives weird results that are hilarious most of the time. Not to mention the nonsensical stuff that make you go "Huh?"



Don't forget Japanese... They have so many of these that they'll never run out of puns... I've seen some manga utilize this that almost every page had to have a translation note to explain the pun. Unfortunately, the translator can't think of the context that it'll pick out some weird things for you at times.

To sum it up, don't depend on it much. Just use it as a last resort.