# Damn free translation! Is it a malfunction or programmer's carelessness? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 29, 2003, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-free-translation-is-it-a-malfunction-or-programmers-carelessness/215818 "2003-11-29T00:40:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Grousser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Grousser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grousser)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-free-translation-is-it-a-malfunction-or-programmers-carelessness/215818/1 "2003-11-29T00:40:49Z")
In [freetranslation.com](http://freetranslation.com), if you put some word not recognized by the translator, it returns the same word in the result box. Damn! Sometimes I don’t know if it’s a legitimate word or is only the original copied. Some solution to this? Another free translator in the web with better behavior? ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-free-translation-is-it-a-malfunction-or-programmers-carelessness/215818/2 "2003-11-29T04:40:21Z")
I think that’s how all of them work. I guess the logic is that proper names stay the same. Still, I agree it would be nice if it marked unknown words, like with italics or something. You could go buy an English to Spanish (or whatever language you need translations in) dictionary or google for **spanish english dictionary**. When I did that, I found [http://www.freedict.com/onldict/spa.html](http://www.freedict.com/onldict/spa.html) which looks like it’ll work pretty well for a variety of different languages. Hope this helps.