Google Translate Is Awesome!

So, I took 4 years of spanish in high school. Now by the end of 4 years of high school spanish, you're not really going to be fluent in the language. This is because a language consists of so much vocabulary, you're just not going to learn that range of words in class. But, it does lay a foundation. If you learn and retain it, you'll basically get how the language is structured, conjugations, agreements, sentence structure. Since high school, I've always just, for some reason or another, kept saying and thinking some spanish things, try to translate things in spanish sometimes, etc. So, I've kept it relatively fresh on my mind, though have always lacking a lot of vocabulary.

Eventually, I discovered google translate. And then more over time began to utilize it. So I just, when I say or think random things, I try to think of how you would say it in spanish. And if I don't know a word needed, I look it up on google translate. And just randomly as I decide to think of something in spanish, I look up words needed to do so. And there has really been a leap in my spanish abilities these last couple of months or so that I've started doing that. It was pretty cool, I've been watching breaking bad, and when the people were speaking spanish I could understand so much of what they were saying, without needing to look at the translation. And just generally I'm able to say so much of what I want to say. And I keep learning more, cuz when I can't I just look up the words that allow me to. And like, I really think say by the end of this year I'll essentially be fluent.

I mean, you could probably look up the fundamentals and structures of other languages somehow or another. And if you could learn that, google translate could be used to help you become fluent from there. So, I think that is a really cool thing. Any of you guys ever use it?

a reply to: TheJourney

In my experiance, it does a real sucky job with German, Latin and Hebrew.

Thats my 2 cents.

I used it last night after a rude reply was sent to me in Hebrew, but had to translate it word by word as it would not do a whole lot of rude lines at once, great to know they translate swear words too. It's kind of like having a babel fish on line, oh I wish I had a real babel fish. I would love to speak to the whole world. I love that there is so many languages. When I was learning Spanish in uni me and my friend made up QUE GANGA which we translated as WHAT A BARGIN, meaning choice or awesome a rad etc.a reply to: TheJourney

originally posted by: IndependentOpinion
a reply to: TheJourney

In my experiance, it does a real sucky job with German, Latin and Hebrew.

Thats my 2 cents.

Yea, I theoretically may be interested in learning more hebrew, I learned some in the past. However, I have been very hesitant on trusting it in that way, with my current level of knowledge being quite limited. You can't expect it to really understand the structure of a language. It's best used as a tool for expanding vocabulary. With the spanish anyways, it always has a bunch of multiple possible translations, and it is extremely useful in that regard. I think sort of thing should really be worked on and perfected. Really an amazing tool.

originally posted by: IndependentOpinion
a reply to: TheJourney

In my experiance, it does a real sucky job with German, Latin and Hebrew.

Thats my 2 cents.

It used to be way worse with Dutch even, but it`s gotten better as long as you translate it to English.

Able to read German, it`s good enough to understand after translation, but I will stick to German reading of course, despite it`s a bit slower reading for me than English or Dutch.

Translator does terrible job with 15 finnish nouns, it gives absolutely weird no sense sentences when translated from other languages to finnish and vice versa.

originally posted by: dollukka
Translator does terrible job with 15 finnish nouns, it gives absolutely weird no sense sentences when translated from other languages to finnish and vice versa.

It will not necessarily understand proper structure. It is primarily useful as a tool for expanding vocabulary. But, if you already know the structure of the language, it is very useful for expanding vocabulary.