Beth Worthy
6/15/2025
A recent addition on social media has been an integrated translation option. If you have friends whose primary language is not English, you may - out of curiosity, clicked "see translation" under posts and still do not know what they are actually saying.
You will also be familiar with comedy posts from entertainment sites, where automated translation services have been used for anything from restaurant menus to supermarket signs, sometimes with staggering and inaccurate results.
What you will have realized from these automated efforts is that a computer program is far from foolproof. No matter how well conceived, a computer translation program doesn't have the sense of romance or idiom with regard to language that a native speaker does.
Also, it's difficult to explain to a computer that cultural norms might dictate a different form of speech to the default results. A worrying trend in business would suggest these very real concerns are being overlooked in order to save money, which can bring about potentially disastrous results.
In professional settings, translation can take many forms — from marketing and advertising translation that preserves brand tone, to legal translation that demands precise terminology, to technical translation where accuracy is critical for safety or usability. Each type comes with its own set of challenges, as outlined in our detailed guide on the most popular types of translations in business, and getting them right can make the difference between building trust with international clients and unintentionally alienating them.
Also Read: What Are the Most Popular Types of Business Translation Services?
Get Quality Transcripts With A 99% Accuracy Guarantee.
Although you might think that your standard business text might be quite safe in the hands of an automated translation program, stop and think for a moment about those comedy posts mentioned above. Many of them come from serious businesses who have no doubt felt that cutting this particular corner was a smart saving.
Instead, they're a laughing stock, and may even have lost some credibility with overseas clients, as well as competitors who hired a professional for accurate translation services.
There's also the massive assumption that the text requiring translation makes sense in the first place. If your original writer doesn't have a perfect grasp of grammar and punctuation, the text may not have been sense-checked adequately even before the automated program gets hold of it.
A real translator will have considerable skill as an editor, and will pick these errors up as par for the course.
Some languages pose additional challenges for automated translation due to their structure, cultural context, and idiomatic richness. For example, Mandarin–English translation isn’t just about converting characters to words, it requires understanding tone, regional variations, and expressions that simply don’t have a direct English equivalent. A phrase like “对牛弹琴” (“playing the lute to a cow”) conveys the futility of speaking to someone who doesn’t understand, but an automated system might render it literally, losing all meaning.
Similarly, Spanish–English translation can be full of subtle pitfalls. A casual expression such as “estar en la luna” (“to be on the moon”) really means someone is distracted or daydreaming. Without a professional translator, the intended meaning can vanish in favor of a strange, literal translation. In both cases, a skilled human translator ensures meaning, nuance, and intent are carried over faithfully — something an algorithm simply can’t replicate.
Whether it’s a quick social media post, a high-stakes business contract, or a cross-cultural marketing campaign, the quality of your translation directly impacts how your message is received. Automated tools can be useful for grasping the gist, but they cannot replicate the cultural sensitivity, idiomatic understanding, and editorial precision that professional translators bring to the table.
As we’ve seen, from idioms that lose their meaning when translated literally to the complexity of languages like Mandarin and Spanish, accuracy in translation is about more than just swapping words. It’s about preserving intent, tone, and trust.
At GMR Transcription, we understand that every word matters. Our 100% human-powered business translation and transcription services ensure your content is clear, culturally accurate, and aligned with your business goals.
