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Is Google Translate for Spanish to English Accurate?

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Google Translate is a handy tool, ideal for quick translations when traveling or reading a document in Spanish. However, it doesn’t come close to being as accurate and effective as professional freelance Spanish to English translators.

If you’re unsure how to translate a page from Spanish to English and cannot afford to make mistakes, we recommend hiring a talented translator with cost-effective rates, fast turnaround times, and a guarantee of flawless translation.

Buyers unsure of the written translation Spanish to English cost commonly find a qualified translator available for immediate hire through Guru with rates from as little as $5 per hour, making high-quality translation affordable and accessible.

How Reliable Are Google Spanish to English Translations?

This free online translation tool is a good solution if you need an approximate translation, but it is important to recognize the limitations! Different reports give variable accuracy measurements, with Google found to get translations right about 90% of the time.

However, if you aren’t comfortable with the prospect of having errors within 10% of your translated materials, a native speaker or somebody with fluency in both Spanish and English is much more dependable and means you won’t be in a difficult position with translated content that doesn’t say what you think it does.

Another aspect to consider is that you can only translate up to 5,500 characters, or roughly 785 to 1,375 words. Longer content, such as translating a website from Spanish to English or needing to transfer a written contract into English, would need to be copied and pasted into multiple smaller sections.

The Benefits of Hiring a Freelance Spanish to English Translator

There are multiple scenarios where businesses and private individuals need a precise translation from Spanish to English and cannot compromise on translation quality or risk having content with numerous mistakes:

  • Translating commercial content from Spanish to English, such as web pages, blogs, package labeling, instruction manuals, marketing materials, and brochures
  • Submitting visa or residency documentation and requiring a certified translation from Spanish into English, with confirmation from a qualified translator that the translation is correct
  • Working on translations for official use, such as legal contracts, insurance paperwork, financial statements, and medical records, where there is no room for error

Machine translations work on individual words and sentences, effectively swapping each word at a time for the equivalent in English. This often means that translations are literal and lose context and meaning.

An example could include a word in Spanish that doesn’t exist in English and would look out of place if it were translated into its literal meaning. Words like ‘quincena,’ meaning a fifteen-day period, or ‘estrenar,’ meaning to reveal something for the first time, do not have a direct alternative in the English dictionary that would flow in the same way.

Professional translators replicate the intention of the original content in Spanish and can select alternative phrases that carry the same emphasis and meaning without distorting the tone of your content in the finished translation.

How to Hire a Freelance Spanish to English Translator

Guru is a specialist freelancer hiring platform connecting skilled professionals with companies and hirers. There are two straightforward ways to find the translator you’d like to work on your project:

  • Posting a job requirement: Explain what work you need to be done, by what deadline, and within what budget, and suitable freelancers will respond with a proposal and quotation for you to compare and review.
  • Browsing our freelance network: You can look at pricing, experience, qualifications, customer reviews, and portfolios of work to pick a freelancer that seems the best fit for your translation requirements.

Either solution is fast and user-friendly, with detailed freelancer profiles that provide plenty of information to ensure you make a great choice. 

Junior and entry-level freelancers still establishing a strong portfolio offer incredible value for money. In contrast, experienced translators can certify Spanish to English translations and can often complete the work by a tight deadline.

Completing an Urgent Spanish to English Translation Project

While many people assume Google Translate is faultlessly accurate, this, unfortunately, isn’t the case. If you need an urgent translation and cannot risk a mistake, we suggest including your timescales in your job post to ensure freelancers only submit a proposal if they have the availability to meet your deadlines!

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