Online translation tools

Effective use and alternatives

By the end of today’s lesson… •You will have a greater understanding of the problems of using online translation tools•You will know some alternative ways of finding out what you need to know when you are doing your homework

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMkJuDVJdTw

Original lyrics available

Ro - rowing , rowing - ro , ro - rowing , rowing - ro , ro -

rowingRead the song lyrics.Version on left = originalVersion on right =Translated from English to Spanish to English

How do we know when you have used online translation tools?• It must be because your French/Spanish or German is so good, mustn’t it?

Discuss!

Bad English! Next weekend I am going to go to reading. Próximo fin de semana voy a ir a leer.

Week-end prochain, je vais aller à la lecture.

Nächstes Wochenende werde ich zum Lesen gehen bin.

Bad English again – spelling mistakes!

I like reading because it's an enjyable experience.Me gusta leer porque es una experiencia enjyable.

J'aime lire parce que c'est une expérience enjyable.

Ich mag lesen, weil es eine Erfahrung ist enjyable.

Grammar that you haven’t learnt yetBien qu'il soit intéressant ...

Cuando sea mayor...

•Context, register and tone are all lost•Each word is translated based on algorithms that work out how frequently words are used together and the translation tool picks what it thinks is the best option

Fans on the ceiling

Short film (beware of some bad language)• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlJsPEgXhC0

Is it ever OK to use an online translator?

Discuss!

• Use as a dictionary (remembering lack of context)• When you have completed your work in French, German

or Spanish you can see what it looks like when translated back into English (taking the results with a pinch of salt)

Alternatives

Discuss!

Fan

Remember to use your notes from our lessons. You should be using the structures that we have practised together.

But the dictionary doesn’t help with tenses, does it? It just gives me infinitives.

Discuss!

Verb conjugator• http://www.wordreference.com/conj/FRverbs.aspx?v=parler

By the end of today’s lesson… •You will have a greater understanding of the problems of using online translation tools•You will know some alternative ways of finding out what you need to know when you are doing your homework

Discuss…1) Some disadvantages of online translation

tools2) Some alternatives to online translation tools3) If you think that it is ever OK to use online

translation tools4) If you learn more from using your class notes

and a dictionary or from typing your text in English into an online translation tool

5) It’s 8pm on a Sunday and your language homework (an essay) is due at 9am tomorrow and you have not started it yet. What do you do?