An Examination on Problems with “Google Translation” with Special Reference to Translating from Sinhala to English and Vice Versa

Abstract

Nowadays, “Google Translation” is an extremely popular service by Google. As it is easier and quicker than manual translations, “Google Translation” is being used all over the world. Although the program supported for several languages, Sinhala language has been newly introduced to “Google Translation”. When comparing Sinhala and English sentence structures, some differences can be identified. By examining “Google Translation”, it can be seen that the program is able to recognize those differences. Though it can translate according to the structure of a particular language, there are problems in some circumstances. Confusions of understanding the nominative case, word order problems and the problems regarding particles are examples for those situations. When translating a complex sentence with a main clause and a subordinate clause, it is difficult to get a proper output because identifying the subordinate clause is not easy for the program. As conjugations of Sinhalese verb is more difficult than English, there are problems when translating English verbs into Sinhalese. Introducing Sinhala language to “Google Translation” is absolutely important not only for the Sinhala language community, but also for every person who is interested in Sinhalese. Thus, the problematic situations should be identified and they must be corrected to get a better service for the program. As Sinhala language has been newly introduced, there is an option for the users to correct the mistakes by giving their comments. The ultimate goal of this research is to examine the problems with “Google Translation” in order to solve them and get a better service from the program.