AN ANALYSIS OF ACCURACY LEVEL OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE IN ENGLISH-BAHASA INDONESIA AND BAHASA INDONESIA-ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS

Abstract

This research study aims at finding out the accuracy level of Google Translate in English – Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Indonesia – English translations.

This research was a descriptive qualitative research investigating the accuracy level of Google Translate in English- Bahasa Indonesia and also Bahasa Indonesia – English translations. The main source of the data was the output translation texts of Google Translate. The sample texts of this research were discussion texts, exposition texts, and narrative texts. There were three texts for each text type. The main concern was on the sentences. The researcher took three translators as the population of target readers because it was assumed that the possible users of Google Translate were translators. In this research, the researcher used some instruments to conduct the research beside the researcher itself. For the calculation of accuracy of Google Translate, data cards and data sheet were applied as the instruments. Since there were only two categorizations in accuracy research, the researcher divided the number into two. A text was said to be accurate if the accurate meanings were more than 50%, but it was said to be inaccurate if the accurate meanings were less than 50%.

The result shows that Google Translate, in both English - Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Indonesia - English translations are considered as inaccurate translation. This statement is based on the finding of accurate occurrence percentage in Google Translate translations which were only 49.1 % and 37.1 %. The numbers are below 50 %, which indicates that the four inaccuracy indicators (omission, addition, different meaning and zero meaning) can be found in most sentences translated by Google Translate. From the finding of this research, it shows that Google Translate still needs some improvements in making the output precise in meaning and it is more appropriate for Google Translate stands only as an aid in translating.

Keywords: accuracy level, Google translate, translation