How Reliable is Google Translate? (Linked In Newsletter)

Google Translate has saved us in one or more situations when we were trapped in life. I remember thanking whoever working behind it in the long sigh after those moments. Just like that, it also makes us laugh with its bizarre translations in our daily meme sessions.

The question of how reliable Google Translate is remains relevant in a professional or business setting where efficiency matters. Check out its accuracy, strengths, weaknesses, and tips for using it effectively.

Starting the journey in 2006, Google Translate now supports 240 languages, outsmarting all competitors. Although accuracy depends on languages and content, some reports have shown a success rate of 94%. In fact, the exact accuracy depends on the language pairs you have chosen.

The 2021 UCLA study shows disparity in accuracy rates for different languages translating from English as the source language.

Language Accuracy

Spanish 94%

Armenian 55%

Chinese 81.7%

Vietnamese 77.5%

GT is accurate for widely spoken and highly resourced languages. It has shown strong performance in European languages and less in Asian languages. Understanding how the tool evolved in the last two decades shed light on its strengths and weaknesses.

Google Translate started as a statistical machine translation service in 2006. It translated text by looking for patterns in vast amounts of text already translated by humans. Developers took great advantage of United Nations and European Parliament documents as databases.

Although it worked efficiently for the time, translations for long sentences were odd. Recognizing the need for the upgrade, GT transitioned into a Google neural machine translation (GNMT) system in 2016. This produces translations of the whole sentence at a time rather than word by word.

The results of the change were surprising; GNMT reduced translation errors by more than 55% - 85% on major language pairs. From 2016 to this year, Google doubled the number of languages with the help of large language models. The initiative to expand this into 1000 languages breaks down language barriers and cultivates global communication.

Despite the growth, the U.S. government discourages using Google Translate in police and medical fields. Machine translations fail to understand the quality of their results, talk back, or conduct research. Still, studies show more than 90 percent of translations are done using machine translation tools.

It's the best choice for casual translations, repetitive content, low-expectations high-quality situations, etc. Meanwhile, the magic touch of Machine Translation Post-Editing services can make your outputs perfect.

Depending on the level of your work, you can choose between human, machine, and MTPE translation. Use specialized services for government and medical documents considering the seriousness. World Link provides subject experts for official translation, with native translators available in over 100 languages.

Google Translate is the best tool due to its cost-effectiveness, fast turnaround, and other benefits. You can also explore competitors like Microsoft Translate, Tencent, and Amazon Translate. The future promises more sophisticated and reliable features in Google Translate and its competitors.