Translate – do we still need human beings to do that?
Translating not only means understanding what your customer wants to say, but also to present the content of the text in the target language. In the end, we want a text which is comprehensible and does not sound like a translation.
This usually precludes a literal translation. Look, for example, at a text about international relations, which speaks about “devious actions” of one country towards another. For the English word “devious”, a dictionary or translation tool will offer you the following German words: ”krumm”, “verschlagen”, “abwegig”, “unaufrichtig”. Your translation tool would therefore say the country had undertaken “deceitful actions” – which doesn’t really say what was meant.
Good translators know how to find precisely the right word. They can understand the original and then find the perfect formulation to convey its precise meaning. So our translator would translate “devious actions” with „provocations“, thereby helping to avoid diplomatic complications.
A translation tool is nice for understanding menus on a holiday abroad. But important texts should rather be translated by a human being.