An alternative to Google Translate

A recommendation from Tororo at a nice slice of tororo shiru: DeepL Translator.

I put Tororo’s post, written in French, into Google Translate and DeepL. Here’s the start of the opening sentence, with links omitted:

Il y a quelques années, en réponse à la remarque d’un lecteur bienveillant, j’avais testé trois logiciels de traduction (Reverso, Babelfish, Google Translate) disponibles en ligne.

Here’s Google Translate:

A few years ago, in response to a benevolent reader’s comment , I had tested three translation software packages (Reverso, Babelfish, Google Translate) available online.

The space before the comma is of Google Translate’s making.

And here’s DeepL:

A few years ago, in response to a kind reader’s remark, I tested three translation software programs (Reverso, Babelfish, Google Translate) available online.

“Kind” sounds more plausible that “benevolent”; “program,” more apt than “package”; but “comment” fits the blogging context better. But Google Translate cannot know that. As the translations continue, each shows a few glitches. But Tororo finds that DeepL produces, “au moins pour les traductions d’anglais en français et de français en anglais, des résultats nettement meilleurs que les trois susnommés réunis.”

Or as Google Translate puts it, “at least for the translations from English to French and from French to English, results much better than the three above mentioned.”

Or as DeepL puts it, “at least for translations from English to French and from French to English, much better results than the three above-mentioned combined.” Notice that DeepL is smart enough to omit the article before “translations.”