Google Translate works well I think for the general public who only want to quickly have something translated to another language that they understand. For this purpose, Google Translate is a fine translator, most of the time. However, that does not mean that Google Translate is without flaws. I agree with Douglas Hofstadter's point of Google Translate being "shallow" in the terms that it essentially takes the words at the surface level and directly translates. This sometimes results in wacky and wonky translations. This is potentially harmful as it could skew someone's understanding of a language if they were to just use Google Translate without any knowledge on the language beforehand.
An example of a machine translation:
いつも低気圧低血圧ダブルパンチ
I got this sentence from Twitter, and it translate directly to
Always low pressure low blood pressure double punch
It does quite make sense, but I feel that it is still understandable.
-June
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