Machine translation software, like the popular Google Translate and Yahoo Babel Fish, offer an enticing trade-off for students of foreign languages: type in an English version of whatever was assigned, and generate a translation into whichever language is required. With the rise of free, online translators, students can easily shirk assignments; however, they can also use these powerful tools as faster and less-expensive dictionaries that can sometimes be more up-to-date than their traditional counterparts.
These sites do have their limitations. Chair of Seminole’s Foreign Language department, Ms. Marta Irlinger said, “These translation engines…are good only to help identify words and their meanings…but will not help students write an essay or a paper properly.” She continued, noting, “It is not a concern for me because it is easy to detect and my students know that.”
The quality of these translations may be questionable at times, but some students find it particularly useful as a substitute for other materials. Freshman Tessa Montana reported, “I use it to help with French homework when I don’t have my textbook.” When asked about the popularity of this software among fellow students, she responded, “Everyone I know is using it.”
Machine translations can be particularly problematic with idioms and other non-literal expressions in foreign languages.
Freshman and Spanish student Jake Rosenblatt said, “My teachers say not to use it all the time, only when I need help translating a word.” Such advice seems to be the consensus among those involved. IB Spanish teacher Ms. Melody Sweigert said, “I think that all these sites are really useful as a dictionary—looking up a single word or phrase.”
Yet, even with the noticeable flaws, cheating on assignments with such software is noticed by teachers. Sweigert admitted that “sometimes [cheating] comes through at the end of the school year because students wish to do things in a hurry.”
Sweigert said of the software, “A student can’t take their computer with them when they take an essay exam. They need to use the most marvelous computer with the greatest storage capacity of all—their brain!”