Professional translators aren’t worried about Google’s language-translating headphones

Translation software recognises words — but not meaning.

Take the following sentence: “The hand made fun of the worm for not knowing what mud was, let alone a moon pool. The toolpusher and the roughneck joined the fun, asking the worm if he knew the difference between kick and kill.”

It sounds like jibberish, but it does make sense — if you’re familiar with jargon used in the oil and gas industry.

A professional translator or interpreter with knowledge of the subject will be able to parse it and convert it into another language while retaining its meaning — while translation software would likely render it nonsensical.

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