Translate.com is an innovative translation platform that provides machine and human translation services for businesses worldwide. Founded in Newark, USA, Translate.com has been a leader in professional human translation, software localization, and advanced language services since 2011. The software supports 56 languages, offers document translation across hundreds of language pairs, as well as business translation, email translation, technical translation, and medical translation, while providing free machine translation and cost-effective human translation to meet various user needs.
The Translate.com interface is clean and aesthetically pleasing, allowing users to switch languages freely, and it supports simultaneous translation of multiple languages for user convenience.
Official website: https://www.translate.com/
After opening the translate.com page, users can see options in the menu bar at the top, including Document Translation, Business Translation, Medical Translation, Technical Translation, Email Translation, and Zendesk Translation offered by the software’s human translation team; below that, the free machine translation is available. Scrolling down the page reveals a more detailed menu, which includes not only the aforementioned services but also a dictionary and language pairs.
2.1 Paid Translation Projects
Aside from machine translation, all services in the software are paid. For example, in the file translation shown in the image below, users can simply drag and drop or paste files into the input box to translate. Before starting the service, users need to select the service type, which includes four options: Free Version ($0.07/word), Lite Version (700 words/$29/month, overage $0.035/word, limited to one language pair), Starter Version (1000 words/$59/month, overage $0.045/word, supports five language pairs), and Professional Version (3500 words/$299/month, overage $0.045/word, supports fifteen language pairs).
2.2 Free Machine Translation
One of the key features of the machine translation is the ability to translate multiple languages simultaneously, which meets the needs of many users requiring multilingual translation. However, the page has a lot of ads, and the language recognition speed is slow, requiring manual selection of the language for confirmation, as it cannot automatically recognize and confirm.
2.3 Electronic Dictionary
Unlike many translation software, this software’s electronic dictionary cannot be queried directly by clicking on the translated text; instead, it has a standalone dictionary available for use. Similar to translation, the dictionary includes hundreds of language pairs synchronized with the translations. As shown in the image below, this dictionary resembles a paper dictionary, requiring users to search by the first letter and then find the corresponding entry by alphabetical order. However, the downside is that the dictionary only provides one corresponding definition and the spelling in three languages, without vocabulary analysis such as variations, collocations, and example sentences, which makes it time-consuming and cumbersome to use.
With the widespread popularity of machine translation, various translation software has emerged on the market, each with its own strengths, which is worth studying for translation learners, especially for us in the field of written translation, as we continuously face the question of whether human translation can be replaced. Looking at the entire translation software system market, machine translation is no longer limited to simple sentence-to-sentence translation but offers more services, such as expansion of translation text types and languages, inclusion of electronic dictionaries, establishment of terminology databases, and collaborative operation with human translation. In the author’s opinion, the software mentioned above, Translate.com, is not sufficiently refined. From the perspective of machine translation, the language recognition is not sensitive enough, affecting user experience; although there are many language settings, the search process is very slow, requiring navigation through menus; from the paid translation service aspect, the prices are higher compared to domestic translation software, and no significant advantages are apparent; regarding the electronic dictionary, the lookup process is cumbersome, and the vocabulary is not comprehensive; from the service offerings, some options, such as the introduction to Zendesk services, are not compelling, and the service features are not prominent.
In summary, the author believes that understanding machine translation needs to be strengthened, and careful selection of software beneficial to the translation is necessary to aid in preliminary translations.
Note: This is a learning work for reference only. Feedback is welcome.
Editor: Britney
