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I teach ESL. It's very obvious, particularly when you know your student's L1 (first language). Students are not fluent in the target language and don't notice, but to a fluent teacher, you're reading a bunch of garbage inputted into a sentence like a Tetris game and it doesn't work.
I agree with the above. Also most ESL teachers don't give translation assignments.
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Originally Posted by sade693
^ "like a Tetris game" that's a perfect analogy!
I, too, taught ESL for a little bit, and machine-translated homework assignments never sound as fluid as human-translated assignments. It's not so much the grammar as it is syntax and word choice issues.
I didn't mean translating like literally "here is a page of writing in your language, now translate it to English." I meant like a writing assignment where they have to write a page or more in English. Where I taught the students were all adults from different countries, so I couldn't make them translate text from one particular language to another anyway.
English phrasal verbs get really interesting translations into romance languages.
It's dead easy to know when something has been run through a software translator.
As software translators become more advanced, especially with crowdsourcing, they provide more accurate translations. They might not be usable for students in advanced-level language classes, but I have known people in basic language classes (Spanish, and possibly German too) whose passage of those courses was largely due to Google Translate (or, even back in the day, Babelfish...remember that?)
As software translators become more advanced, especially with crowdsourcing, they provide more accurate translations. They might not be usable for students in advanced-level language classes, but I have known people in basic language classes (Spanish, and possibly German too) whose passage of those courses was largely due to Google Translate (or, even back in the day, Babelfish...remember that?)
Only due to the teachers being idiots, or not caring; not uncommon in first year language classes as most students are there because it is a requirement, thus a teacher is not going to commit a great deal of time or care as they would to more advance classes where students are there by choice.
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