8. What about translation software?

If you are pressed for time and want to get the gist of something for your own personal use, translation software may be helpful. It is certainly fast. And you can't get much cheaper than free.

But translation software is literal. It does not take context into account. When there are multiple possible translations for a word, the software will typically select the first option in alphabetical order.

A French company used translation software to produce a financial report: la clôture mensuelle became "The Monthly Fence"; positionnement chrono journal became "positioning stopwatch newspaper". And so on.

As a general rule, do not use raw computer output for anything outbound without the express agreement of your clients. It is simply not suitable professionally and you run the risk of appearing laughably inarticulate and incompetent.

Here is an example:

Careful editing of machine output by skilled human translators is one option, although not all translators will accept such assignments. Many insist that texts generated by computer programs are so skewed it is faster to start from scratch.

Some translation providers and others have developed proprietary software for specific language pairs and subjects; their gisting will be much better than any off-the-shelf packages. But it will not be free, and for all but a handful of cases will still need human revision.