With modern businesses growing so fast and so many people turning to online businesses for services, there is a need for people around the globe to be able to communicate effectively all over the internet. Google, being the largest web service browser around, needs to have an application that translates various languages for its users to be able to search their topics of relevance. Google has therefore developed a Google translator application known as Google translate.

This application ensures that you are able to type in any language and then translate it into your desired language of choice. Google translate is also capable of voicing the language you have typed or translated. This is very advantageous especially for those people who want to learn other foreign languages. They can simply listen and repeat the words as voiced and, over time, master the basics of the language they want to learn.

This sure is a great way of learning on your own. Of course, you can also enhance your language skills by attending some of the fantastic business language schools out there there.

However, even Google translate has its limits! Google translate can sometimes translate one language into another and the words end up being nonsense or grammatically incorrect. This normally happens when a person does not know the language translated to and thus can’t comprehend whether there are errors and most importantly whether the sentences make sense. Fear not though. This post has a few tips to make sure you are using Google translate to the best of your abilities.

Translate Back

The first tip is that you should always make sure that you translate back the translated text to check whether it still makes reasonable sense. This is very crucial for double checking especially if you don’t know the language. For example, translate English to Spanish then back to English to check whether the meaning has being lost.

Google Translate is Still New, Use It Wisely

The Google translate application is still very new. It does a great job overall, however, I would not consider it 100% reliable. Due to this, I wouldn’t use Google translate if the conversation you are having is very important. For example, I wouldn’t recommend using Google translate to close a major business deal with a foreign client. For something like this, it is better to have a translator so you know exactly what is being said.

Be Careful with Large Blocks of Text

Google translate has proven to work best for the translation of words that it can easily replace when using a dictionary. However, when it comes to the translation of long sentences and large number of paragraphs, it will often contain a few errors. So, if you are reading something to get a general idea of the text, Google translate will work great. However, if you need the very specific details out of the text, be careful using Google translate.

Phonetic Typing

Last, but not the least, is the use of phonetic typing. This feature allows you to type in a language written in a different script using a Roman (Latin) alphabet representation of the words. This is great if you need to go from one character set to say the Japanese or Hebrew character set. For browsers, it’s detected automatically if you are not using the default browser set language. The browser detects and translates this automatically.

Know of another great tip for Google Translate? Let us know in the comments!