BEST IELTS Writing Task 2, 26th September

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IELTS WRITING TASK 2

Nowadays it is possible to use computers and mobile phones for automatic language translation, and there is no need for human translators and interpreters. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

SAMPLE ANSWER

The technology advancements have given us many benefits and the translation of languages is an important use of this technology. It may be thought that since we have machine translators now, which can translate one language to another, there is no need to have human interpreters and translators. I completely disagree with this notion and a number of arguments support my perspective, which I will elaborate on in the forthcoming paragraphs.

To begin with, translating a language from one to another is not a simple process. It is rather complex, involving the structure, meaning, nuances, culture, tone of the expression and many more such details need to be kept in mind. The machine translation is mostly direct word-to-word translation and usually doesn’t take into account the grammatical differences in different languages, leading to errors in syntax. So human interpretation cannot be undermined as people can gauge the underlying tone or emotion of the text, change the structure depending on the language and take care of the subtleties of the language. For instance, the meaning of one word can be changed in terms of the context it is used in.

Another reason why human interpreters are better than automatic machine translators is because language is directly related to the culture. A machine translation cannot be designed to include this aspect. The machines cannot capture these nuances and thus, the machine-translated text will be literal and the actual message of the expression is lost. For instance, there are idioms and proverbs in every language that do not have a direct meaning and have an underlying message.

Admittedly, in this fast paced contemporary world, we need to get our work done quickly and machine translators are quick and mostly available for free. We can easily look for information about any topic and if it is available in a different language, it can be quickly translated and understood. The ‘Google translate’ tool is a very good example for this use. Even though there might be some sentence structure errors, we can mostly use such translators for personal use or internal use in offices.

However, when sending official emails, formal letters, writing assignments, etc. it is best to have a professional human translator, so that the exact message can be conveyed, keeping in mind the differences in the culture of the audience.

To sum up, it can be reiterated that even though technology has revolutionized and eased our work, however, in areas like language translation, machines can’t surpass human ingenuity.

IELTS Writing Task 2

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