Free Language Translation Produced by Translation Software and Human TranslatorsFree language translation... Of course, we do not pay money for it. But is such translation useful? Can we rely on it? Can it be accurate? Periodically, I receive emails from companies, with which I cooperate, written in German, Italian or French. I do not speak these languages, but I need to know the content of the emails because it may be important for my business. What do I do? Simply use free language translation software at SDL FreeTranslation.com to translate them into English. Although resulting machine translations are inaccurate and clumsy, they are OK for “gisting”. They do give an idea of what is written in the emails.Free online translation options offered by SDL FreeTranslation.com: free text translation and free website translation. They translate texts in 19 languages (Western European languages plus Russian, Chinese and Japanese) and websites in 13 languages (Western European languages). Free language translation tools of SDL FreeTranslation.com do not just translate text word-by-word, but also analyze it based on grammar rules. Another free language translation software that I would recommend is the Google translation system for text and website translation between 50+ languages. Google has used a special approach to "train" their automatic translation system, that is Google creates databases of source texts and respective human translations using zillions of electronic texts available in two or more languages. Relationships between these texts are analyzed and memorized, and then used by the automatic translation system, which thus learns from the human translations. SYSTRAN, one of the leaders in the language translation software market, provides a free online translation service too. With its free online language translator you can translate texts, web pages, files and RSS feeds in 52+ language pairs. There are much more free online translators, popular and not-so-popular. All of them provide machine (or automatic) translation. Advantages of machine translation are as follows: it is instant, free of charge and gives the gist of something written in a language that you do not understand. It is acceptable for personal use. Also, businesses my use it when they need to process massive volumes of data to scan for certain terms. Then, identified portions of text containing the terms of interest can be passed to human translators for professional translation. Machine translation disadvantages: translations are inaccurate, skewed, and sometimes meaningless. The point is that machine translation tools are unable to take into account situational, social and cultural contexts without which communication is impossible. Professional human translators actually transfer thoughts behind words, and we cannot expect the same from translation software so far. If you intend to do business with foreign partners or communicate with people speaking a foreign language, consider a professional translation service. By the way, professional translators provide free language translation as well. Further reading on free online machine translation:
Where to look for free human translation? 
Translation graduates and beginning translators with little experience may offer free language translations. Such free projects help them gain experience and get client testimonials important for their future career in the translation industry.There are student volunteer organizations that provide translation services for various clients. Just a few examples:
English and Spanish classes, translations for public agencies, businesses and religious organizations…"
Even governmental departments offer free translation services. For example, the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship says that they provide "a free translation service for people settling permanently in Australia."
You may wonder why crowdsourcing translations is not mentioned as an option on this Free Language Translation Page. This is because crowdsourcing is NOT free for companies. It costs money to manage work of volunteer translators and ensure quality of such work. For example, Facebook has invested heavily in the development of an application that allows for crowdsourcing translation. Return from Free Language Translation Page to Home Page _____________________________________________________________________ Website owner: Irina Lychak, self-employed freelance linguist, Russian translator, Ukrainian translator, Kiev (Kyiv), Ukraine
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