In early 2015, Google released a significant upgrade of its Translate application. No longer content to offer translations of written text, the upgraded app now includes a visual translator and an audio translation function.

Machine translation, particularly in the English – Spanish and Spanish – English language pairs, is often utilized by business owners in Costa Rica, and the preferred option seems to be Google Translate. This practice can hardly be recommended for conducting formal business, and the infographic herein explains why.

VerbaLink, the translation firm behind this infographic, further explains in greater detail:

We enlisted two of our Spanish translators, Adriana and Gaby, to participate in a two-part test. For the first test, Google Translate and Adriana were required to translate a promotional document about Argentina’s National Beekeeping Council from Spanish into English. For the second test, both contenders had to translate approximately one minute of spoken Spanish audio into English.

Gaby is one of our quality control specialists, so we had her serve as our judge.

Translations were judged on several dimensions, including word choice, grammar and syntax, and overall accuracy and comprehension.

So how did our contestants do? While Google Translate has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 2001, it’s still not going to take the place of human translators anytime soon.

For both document and audio translation, it was able to adequately capture the overall gist of the content and would be useful for quick, general understanding. However, Google’s translations were too raw to be used for any professional purpose, and readability was often compromised by poor word choices and questionable grammar.

Our human translator Adriana fared better, with higher overall accuracy and a greater ability to capture the tone and style of the original documents. By being able to really consider the subject matter, context, and target audience, Adriana was able to create translations that didn’t read like translations.

When you need immediate results, and they don’t have to be perfect, it’s OK to use Google Translate. For any sort of business or commercial documents, or anything that has to be precise, it’s best to stick with human translators.

For business translation serviced in Brazil, see https://www.businessenglishnow.com.br.