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Google Translate

Prompted by a post on TES Connect by Graham Davies I thought I would take a look at Google Translate, which I almost never used. Graham was arguing that it is so good now, especially given that you can interact with it and refine translations, that it may not be worthwhile setting translation or composition for homework.

Here is a sample Eng-French translation from an intermediate level piece of text:

Original:

 I believe that I have a fairly healthy lifestyle. I eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, at least four portions a day, I do exercise three times a week and I never smoke. I occasionally have an alcoholic drink, but rarely drink to excess. Last night I had a nice glass a of red wine with my meal.

Google's "unadulterated" version:

Je crois que j'ai un style de vie assez sain. Je mange beaucoup de fruits et légumes, au moins quatre portions par jour, je ne l'exercice trois fois par semaine et je ne fume jamais. J'ai parfois avoir une boisson alcoolisée, mais rarement boire à l'excès. Hier soir, j'ai eu un bon verre de vin rouge une de mes repas.

You can see that the translation is not consistently successful. If you then try some other options you are offered by Google translate, you can arrive at this best version:

Je crois que j'ai un style de vie assez sain. Je mange beaucoup de fruits et légumes, au moins quatre portions par jour, je ne l'exercice trois fois par semaine et je ne fume jamais. J'ai occasionnellement une boisson alcoolisée, mais rarement boire à l'excès. Hier soir, j'ai eu un bon verre de vin rouge une avec mon repas.

It's better, but is still recognisably a computer translation. A skilled student could certainly use Google translate as a first version, then adapt it. A weaker student would find it hard to hide cheating.

So where does this leave us?  In the long run, as I have blogged before, the teaching of writing may become redundant, except as a tool for reinforcing other skills and grammatical knowledge. For the moment I believe we should put up a strong front to students and warn them that using Google translate is cheating and will be sanctioned. At our school we thankfully get few cases of internet translator abuse and we set a great deal of composition work, along with some translation, at all levels.


In the meantime, some teachers are beginning to find ways of circumventing online translators by adjusting the style of homework task they set:


http://vickyloras.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/if-google-is-translating-then-ill-start-revamping-guest-post-by-naomi-ganin-epstein/

Thanks to Graham for that link.

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