web page translation
 

Instead of having the reader of my pages translating pages into the reader's mother tongue, I'd like to create some of my pages in foreign languages.

There is a lot of choice about online translation on the net but it seems some are worst than others. I just read that Google's translation is not good.

Is there anyone with a bit of experience in this area able to give a few tips?

Thank you for your help.

The automatic translators are not good. You may find a pair that translates one pair of languages in such a way that's not obvious it was automatic. Searching one for every language may be pain. Also, there may be nothing.

I tried English to German and it was understandable, but to make it look (more or less) natural I had to use special grammatical structures (especially tenses). The text in English didn't look natural at all. I also tried English to Polish and any translator I tried was a complete disaster.

I think they work when languages are similar to each other and for ones with simplier grammar. If the language has complicated grammar, automatic tools are nearly useless.

Thank you Mara. We're setting up an international Not-For-Profit organization and the idea was to translate essential pages like how to complete some forms that require more than names and addresses, how to supply material to us etc.
The material to be translated will be considerably edited till every single word is found to be accurate (for example use "difficult" not "hard") and necessary. We'll also make it known to the reader that it is a machine translation till our finances can afford a proper translation.

Do you think we could still face some disaster in the circumstances? My mother tongue is French, I could do some tests in that regard but I would think your experience with Polish is more useful.

It's hard to say. It all depends on the text. Releasing it 'as is' from the tool is not a good idea. Spend some time searching for people who can proof-read for you --- maybe not to rewrite it, but to correct obvious mistakes and things that are not clear. In how many languages it will lead to a complete rewrite --- it's very hard to say.

Thank you again. Trying to get people tp proof-read it is a very sensible suggestion.