Home   Blog   Machine Translation – When, How, Why And Where It All Began!

Machine Translation – When, How, Why And Where It All Began!

By: Eric Nelson Posted on Mon, 26-10-2015

People have always been curious about other languages. There was a time when translation was an exclusive talent which was possessed by very people. But when a new technology came around and became available to the general public. Things changed and turned around. What are we talking about? We are talking about Machine Translation.

Apparently during the WWII, America needed someone to translate constantly from German to English and English to German. A scientist named Warren Weaver invented a decoding system pretty much like the one created by Alan Turing. They invented a valuable thing, but it was exclusive. So how did we get to use it so leisurely?

It was the IBM engineers who took Weaver’s decoding machine solution in 1988 and enhanced it to fit the new generation of users. However, it was later adopted by Google and made available for all. In 2006, exactly 9 years ago, Google Translate was launched. Sure, there were some pretty hilarious mistakes and oddities made by Google, but it was in the infant years. In the beginning, it offered translation from English to German, Spanish and French.

It later added Portuguese, Italian, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Chinese Traditional, Dutch, Greek and Hindi to their system. After that we got the full version over the years that now supports more than 90 languages. At first we could only translate from English to the language of our choice, but now we can choose any language pair. What we are using now is the 39th stage of Google Translate, so you can imagine the pains Google Translate Team went through to get to this point.

And of course, now we also have a “speak” function that allows you to hear an automated voice speak the words in the right accent. Although, the implied use of this translation source was to get “quality” translations for free. We all know that is not possible. Machine Translation is great help for students or beginners who are testing the murky waters of translation services, but this is not a substitute for Human translation.  

We all know the oddities and hilarious mistakes by Google Translate, but this cannot happen in the documents, projects or product leaflets. That is a sensitive project and must always be handled by a translation service provider who is experienced and has a command over the words. Simply using cheap translation services is not going to cut it for you. You will need to have a team of translators who you can rely on, can expect great translations and timely delivery.

And that can only be achieved by a professional translation service provider.

Related Blogs

Japanese to English Document Translation Services

MarsTranslation provides one of a kind professional Japanese to English document translation services all over the world. All of MT’s

Read More
The Most Important Languages to Learn in the 21st Century

It is very difficult and tricky to define the most important languages on the globe today. It is because countless

Read More
Translation Plays a Key Role in the Medical Industry

Every field has its importance, but the medical field is the most critical of all. This is because it deals

Read More
How Many Languages Are Spoken in Metaverse World?

The last three years have been crucial for the Metaverse. Companies like Facebook and Apple are beginning to tailor their

Read More
Top 10 Most Studied Languages in the World

Learning to speak new languages has always been important throughout history. It just opens up so many possibilities. However, studying

Read More
French Dialects and Variations: A Essential Guide for Brands

When you translate to or from the French language, considering linguistic distinctions and dialects, it’s not as simple as translating

Read More
Top 10 Pharmaceutical Translation Companies in the USA

The rising number of diseases and technological advancements have driven innovation and new research in the pharmaceutical and medical fields.

Read More
DeepSeek vs. GPT-4: Which is Better for AI Translation?

With the rapid rise of AI-powered translation tools, businesses are now able to overcome language barriers with speed, precision, and

Read More
What is Sworn Translation?

The importance of language translation solutions in today’s globalized world is well established. The accuracy of translations is the one

Read More

© Copyright 2026 MarsTranslation