Free translations are embarrassing !

If you don’t think it’s worth paying for a professional translator when you can just get a free internet translation system to do the job, this will give you an idea of the quality of an automated translation:

1. Type ‘free translation’ in Google and pick a free translation service - say Google Translate.
2. Copy a paragraph from a trusted website in French - or any language, for that matter. For example, you can use my French pages, a news snippet from Charlie Hebdo or an article in a magazine like France Football.
3. Either let the computer identify the language or help it out by selecting it, then translate into English to see what it's capable of.

These 'freebies' all attempt to convince internet users that machines can do the job. If you are conscious about the quality and accuracy of your message, and if you are serious about your foreign audience, save yourself the embarrassment and talk to a native translator!

Read my article on machine translation for more (sometimes very funny!) examples.