Why do people try and translate things with online translators?

You are very right. Many want to be able to give an answer, they'll try anything and go to a translation site is the easy option. Maybe they should let the national of the language answer the question.

As for the Goddess of answer, she's wrong. It's not that the grammar was wrong, it's the way people talk to each other. It is the same in English. (whom is not used much in everyday language). Translation site can help but they are not the way people talk.

BE TOLD

I don't know if you'd consider me to be wasting people's time, but sometimes I do make use of online translators in my daily life and here on Answers. Why? Normally for practice and sometimes as a linguistics exercise. (in my daily life, to actually understand stuff) I daresay that given that I'm a Top Contributor, I've wasted far more of my own time here than anyone else's.

If you're referring, though, to the French "sentence" that went something like "C'est tu que l'a dit, pas moi", the fact is that it is so grammatically incorrect in French as to be essentially meaningless. It's no more wrong, in a way, to translate the words that were written into the nonsense that that they mean, than to translate a meaningless sentence into a meaningful one.

@Thierry, sure, people will say "que" for "qui" but when was the last time you said "tu" for "toi"?

ETA: No, my point was that the fact that it didn't make any sense as a phrase in English should have given the asker a bit of a clue that the ORIGINAL was bad, not the translation. Online translators almost always give grammatically correct translations (sometimes--okay often--inappropriate ones) of grammatically correct sentences. And if the asker had a good idea of the meaning, she would probably WANT to know that it was a bad sentence. She specifically said she wanted to know the EXACT meaning.

I have no idea why they do that but I agree with you. It's ridiculous to translate some phrase by using online translator, because the asker can do that by himself. Online translators are useful sometimes, but they translate the phrase or sentence word by word in the other language i.e. literally and the sentences make no sense. It's about high time for them to stop doing that!!!

Yes, try to help and figure out what the other person is saying.

If online translator gives a translation in English that does not make sense, don't put it on Yahoo Answers.

Am bilingual, and am always telling people 'Do not use online translators'. Some of their answers are absolutely ludicrous, but mainly the answers are NOT what the questioner wants to get. What they need to get is an accurate translation that takes into account the nuances and subtleties of another language. (And correct syntax and grammar). (And sometimes current slang and idioms etc)

I don't think the use of such tools is such a crime....it could be helpfull to some basic things. The problem is when true, fluent, Spanish-speaking folks translate and others who know a lot less INSIST they are right. Check this out:

Yo soy 100% boricua. Muchas veces me he tomado el tiempo de traducir cosas, y otras personas que saben menos, o que no son partes de nuestra cultura nos tratan de decir que estamos mal. Quieren ser como Jalisco....Nunca quieren perder!!

I am referring to Spanish tranlations specifically!

So you see......

in mu opinion, it's way better to use an online dictionary and your brains than a translation engine. online translators simply ALWAYS talk gibberish.

also, since i don't know much about french, i would never take an attempt to translate anything in that language. with an engin or without it. maybe that's why i don't really understand people who actually use those to translate stuff they have no idea about.

that's just really sad. bordering pathetic.

as for Caribbean Queen♥'s post:

the sites you've posted are absolutely hilarious! biiiiig thumbs-up for you, girl! i wish i could give you more than one of those. thanks for making me laugh

You would not always get an accurate translation using online translations, since it is a 'computerized' version. It is better to ask a native speaker, especially when idioms are involved.

For example see these pages (there are others like it), computerized translation was done rather than using someone who spoke the languages fluently.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/540919/po...

http://funnies.paco.to/Translations.html

When someone asks for help to translate something, they want an ACCURATE answer, that's why they asked.

You want us to translate all of that with only our heads? Sorry, but 10 pts is not enough incentive to do all that. I suggest you use Google language tools.

You're absolutely right, these translation engines are no good for serious use.

They are funny, though, in the way they get things wrong. Me & a Spanish girlfriend used to send each other letters translated using Babel Fish - they were hilarious!