# any good sites or programs for translating entire documents

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-sites-or-programs-for-translating-entire-documents/738524>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 25, 2015, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-sites-or-programs-for-translating-entire-documents/738524 "2015-11-25T07:52:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![carlowplayer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@carlowplayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlowplayer)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-sites-or-programs-for-translating-entire-documents/738524/1 "2015-11-25T07:52:04Z")

</div>

have about 50 work documents am working on and need them entirely translated and am wondering are alternatives to google translate like software that can translate and produce a copy of the document in another language in an efficient manner better than google translate.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-sites-or-programs-for-translating-entire-documents/738524/2 "2015-11-25T07:58:04Z")

</div>

This could well vary with the languages involved: what are they?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![carlowplayer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@carlowplayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlowplayer)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2015, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-sites-or-programs-for-translating-entire-documents/738524/3 "2015-12-12T01:03:34Z")

</div>

well they cover all aspects of society: all sub sectioned of the primary sectors,secondary sector, all sub sections of the of the hard and soft infrastructure and there are alot of youtube links there as well.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2015, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-sites-or-programs-for-translating-entire-documents/738524/4 "2015-12-12T04:00:02Z")

</div>

Not what is the nature of the texts, which are the languages.

English-Spanish is the most common pair, there’s enough human-produced material out there that automatic translators fed with it can range from “bloody hell it’s all in the wrong order and there isn’t a single correct number-gender match” to “some sentences are wrong but others are perfectly correct”. Finnish-Chinese… don’t even try it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2015, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-sites-or-programs-for-translating-entire-documents/738524/5 "2015-12-12T04:13:47Z")

</div>

Just as a random example. I went to [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) translate and used a random sentence from the SDMB.  
Translated English to Russian and back again.

Original:Carson and Trump have nothing in common and appeal to wholly different segments of the electorate.  
End result:Carson and Trump have nothing to do and call on completely different segments of the electorate.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2015, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-sites-or-programs-for-translating-entire-documents/738524/6 "2015-12-12T04:57:46Z")

</div>

Never met a machine that could translate text.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2015, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-sites-or-programs-for-translating-entire-documents/738524/7 "2015-12-12T22:53:35Z")

</div>

People keep saying that machine translation is so good nowadays, but I practically never see a machine-translated document from Japanese to English, say, that is anything other than gibberish. Perhaps other language pairs do better.