I don't know if you often use Google Translate, Google's translation tool, but even though it is a very useful tool, it is far from perfect. The translations are often very literal and often miss the real meaning of a text or a sentence...
But it is still a very useful tool for trying to understand words or sentences in other languages.
However, for some time now there has been a very high quality alternative to Google Translate: DeepL.
The project was initiated by Linguee, a site specializing in contextual translations. DeepL is based on a neural network that benefits from the billions of contextual translations available in Linguee's databases. To run this neural network, DeepL is powered by the 23rd most powerful supercomputer in the world, based in Iceland and capable of performing more than 5 billion floating-point operations per second (100 petaFLOPS), a real war machine. This computer is powerful enough to translate a million words in less than a second.
In order to launch their service, the guys from DeepL have launched a comparison study between the main translation tools available online: Google Translate, Microsoft Translator, Facebook and DeepL Translator. 100 sentences were translated with these 4 tools and submitted to professional translators and the results are clear (while keeping in mind that it is DeepL who conducted the study).
Currently, DeepL works with 7 languages (and therefore 42 translation combinations): French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Dutch… but its neural networks are already working on other languages…
In short, I who regularly use translation tools in my work, I don't have too many problems translating English, but concerning German it's a different story. Well, the result is very clear. While often Google is giving me translations unreadable, DeepL gives very good results, which without being perfect, at least allow the text to be understood… for example with this extract from an article on Oktoberfest:
The original excerpt:
Google Translate translation:
DeepL translation:
After a few weeks of use, I have definitely adopted DeepL! Don't hesitate to keep this site in your favorites for your next translation needs!
DeepL now has a free application for your computer.
Article updated on January 7, 2025 by Byothe
Thanks for this info… But, will DeepL be able to translate “unreadable translations”?
Yes, excellent. I have been using it for 3 months (at least). However, it lacks extensions in Chrome or elsewhere. I use Deep Translator as a Chrome extension but it is far from perfect in terms of usability. In the context menu, "Translate this..." does not translate the entire selected sentence if it exceeds 2-3 lines and the notification (in Linux in any case) cannot be selected or copied. However, clicking on the Deep Translator icon at the top right is more usable but not very aesthetic and again, it does not translate the entire selected text (well, not always). So it needs to be improved. I think others will appear because the APIs are free.
I just discovered a multi-platform extension called Mate Translate. Very complete, very efficient and ergonomic but unfortunately commercial. I searched but I did not find which translation engine it uses.
The ideal would be for them to release their own expansion!