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Chapter 1 - Can We Have a Word?

from Part I - Communicating in English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  aN Invalid Date NaN

Vered Shwartz
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
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Summary

Automatic translation tools like Google Translate have improved immensely in recent years. Older translation technology selected the sentence that sounded more natural in the target language among multiple prospective word-by-word translations. Conversely, the current tools learn a sentence-level translation function from human translations. Although they are very useful, automatic translation tools don’t work equally well for every pair of languages and every genre and topic. For this reason, automatic translation didn’t yet make second language acquisition obsolete. Mastering English means being able to think in English rather than translating your thoughts from your native language. The language of our thoughts affects our word choice and grammatical constructions, so going through another language might result in incorrect or unnatural sentences. Choosing the right English words involves obstacles such as mispronunciation, malapropism, and inappropriate contexts.

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Chapter
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Lost in Automatic Translation
Navigating Life in English in the Age of Language Technologies
, pp. 5 - 21
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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  • Can We Have a Word?
  • Vered Shwartz, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book: Lost in Automatic Translation
  • Online publication: 08 October 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009552356.002
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  • Can We Have a Word?
  • Vered Shwartz, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book: Lost in Automatic Translation
  • Online publication: 08 October 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009552356.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Can We Have a Word?
  • Vered Shwartz, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book: Lost in Automatic Translation
  • Online publication: 08 October 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009552356.002
Available formats
×