Question about online German translators...?

Question

I have been using a German translator online and when I translate a phrase back to English, it doesn't really make sense. Do they rearrange the words to make it correct in German or what?

Answer 1

Online translators are usually a disaster... I guess the German translations didn't make much sense already. The problem is they often don't arrange the words correctly and what's worse is that there are often different possible translations for a word depending on the context, and as the online translators don't understand the context, they often pick words that just don't fit. I have sometimes tried to use online translators to translate things from languages I don't understand well to German or English... the results are always bad. I've never seen a correct German sentence coming out of an online translator... If it's not too much I can translate something to German for you, or you can show me what the online translator made of it, it's my native language.  

Answer 2

That's the idea.  English and German grammar aren't always in the same order, so the sentences may be structured differently.  When using any online translator, a reverse translation is a good way to "check" the result.  It STILL may be wrong, but as you can see, if you don't do a reverse translation, it will probably be even MORE wrong.

It's also very helpful to keep a thesaurus handy.  Neither language is conceptually accurate, so if you use the English word "set," it could have dozens of different definitions.  Sometimes an online translator assumes a different meaning for your word, so it may help to replace it with another word that has the same meaning.