How to Use Google Translate for Business and International Relations

Technical and business document translation
Conversations by internet messaging
For fun, too!

You can use Google translate to access technical documents in other languages.

In our global economy, this ability can come in handy for a lot of people to access technical knowledge that might otherwise remain hidden.

You can enter the text of anything into translate.google.com and get a basic understanding of the content of the document. You can even have a conversation with people all over the world in various languages with some success.

But you can’t rely on perfection. Professional translators will tell you that using a computer to translate is impossible, and that is true in a way. Google Translate alone is not enough to produce a document for other people to read.
It can introduce all kinds of errors, and you can rely on the grammar to be completely incorrect. It is important to be aware of those limitations.

I used this method last year to translate a document from Italian into English, to share with others in our global company. On top of Google Translate, I used the following tools to accommodate for Google Translate’s limitations.

A very thorough knowledge of the subject matter (so I can look at the gist of the advice, and rewrite it as I would say it anyway – which of course means I am not doing a translation that’s completely true to the author’s voice, but for our purposes, does mean it’s technically accurate). I have to admit sometimes I have added my own opinion to the point, but that is normal for professional collaboration.
A smattering of Italian knowledge of my own (I’m not completely unfamiliar with the structures of the sentences, anyway).
An editor friend who is fluent in Italian and willing to read it over to make sure I got it right.
Communications with the original author.

DO feel free to use Google Translate, but use caution and humility when doing so. Here is a sample of the document I translated, with:

the original Italian
the Google translate results
the edited English results.

And, for fun

I used to work with some fantastic people in Italy. One of them is Giorgio Borgonovo.

We got laid off on the same day and Giorgio is making treasure of his jobless time by retracing a journey his grandfather did a hundred years ago, and making a marvelous blog, including photos and video blogs, along the way: http://www.storycity.it/ . He writes some of the posts in Italian and some in English. His journey is so exciting that I want to read every bit of it! Happily, Google translate helps.

When I saw the above picture, of course I wanted to read the post to find out what he was up to (as you can see, my friend is a charming man!). He wrote this:

Il fascino della Fernandomobile

Eravamo appena usciti dal ristorante e ci apprestavamo a fare un giro notturno per Budapest in macchina. Intanto che ci avviciniamo alla Fernandomobile notiamo un gruppetto di persone che la stanno esaminando. L’accento è italiano. Gli sorrido. Loro mi fanno i complimenti per la macchina, al che mi offro di lasciar loro un ricordo e tiro fuori dal baule alcune cartoline. Sono entusiasti e iniziano a fare un sacco di domande sul viaggio di Fernando, sul nostro viaggio, la prossima destinazione? e poi?

Insomma nel giro di qualche minuto mi ritrovo con un pubblico a cui raccontare la storia.

Un viaggio non è fatto di tappe, ma di incontri.

I can make it out a little, but I’d like confirmation of what it says so I go to translate.google.com and cut and past the text in. Google translate tells me that passage says this:

The charm of Fernandomobile

We had just left the restaurant and we were going to do a night tour to Budapest by car. Meanwhile we approach the Fernandomobile we see a bunch of people that are looking at. Emphasis is Italian. I smile. They make me compliments for the machine, to which I offer to let them remember and pull out of the trunk some postcards. They are excited and start to make a lot of questions about your trip to Fernando, on our trip, the next destination? and then?

So in a few minutes I find myself with an audience to tell the story.

A journey is not made of milestones, but of meetings.

How beautiful. That Google translate result is definitely clear enough to enjoy and share his trip!

Conversations through internet messaging

You can use Google translate to converse with people all around the world. They can write you in their language, you enter their text in Google translate to see what they said, and then you can reply in English, or you can put your English text into Google translate and copy its result into the chat window.

I have had some really great conversations this way. Conversing with other human beings is the spice of life. You can work on learning another language this way, learn travel tips for other cities, discuss life, the universe, and everything, or have rather technical discussions about projects with international colleagues.

Bon appetit! I hope these tools help you enjoy other people, business, and adventures around the world, even from the comfort of your own computer.