TRANSLATION STUDENTS’ PREFERENCES ON GOOGLE

TRANSLATOR TOOLKIT FOR THEIR TRANSLATION ACTIVITY

Burhanuddin Imamuna
burhanuddinimamuna1@gmail.com
Graduate Program in English Language Teaching
Universitas Negeri Malang

ABSTRACT
Nowadays, the development of technology has influenced the way
students learn English. The integration of technology in language
teaching is not only focused on the teaching of skills, such as writing,
speaking, and others, but also in teaching translation. It is proved that
there have been many softwares specifically designed for the translation
as a translation tool. This study focused on the students’ preference for
Google Translator Toolkit for translation activity. The aim of this study
was to explore and identify the Computer Assisted Translation Tool
that is preferred by translation students of English Department of UIN
Malang. From the total 25 students, there were 16 respondents who
what to participate in this research. The questionnaires were given to
sixteen respondents to find out their preferences in using translation
tool, especially Google Translator Toolkit. The result showed that the
students prefer using Google Translator Toolkit as their tool assistant
rather than other translation tools because of several reasons.

Key words: Translation, Computer Assisted Translation Tool, Machine

Translation, Google Translator Toolkit

1. Introduction
The technology has been used largely in language teaching and learning
activity. According to Brown and Lee (2015), the use of computer to language
learning had already existed since 1970. Still from the same source, it then
continued to be used for skill practice in 1980. It is called as Computer-Assisted
Language Learning (CALL). In addition, the use of technology in language
classrooms is not restricted only on teaching skills, such as speaking, reading,
listening, and writing, but also in teaching translation.
Translation, in other hand, can be regarded as one element in writing skill.
Because, as we know, in the EFL writing class, there must be a process of
translating the idea from the source language to the target language. In this
context, Indonesian EFL students must translate their ideas firstly from
Indonesian language to English language to produce the final product. Instead,
Guerra (2014) argued that translation is sometimes considered the fifth skill since
it can be used to improve four main skills of English language, which are reading,
listening, speaking, and writing.

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 However, although it looks quite similar skills, technologies used in the
teaching and learning of both skills are not the same. Softwares like Grammarly,
Microsoft Word, Google Doc, and many others are the examples of technologies
which are used in teaching and learning writing skill. Those kind of softwares
only have features like grammatical correctness, punctuation, capitalization, and
spelling checker which are very useful in writing activity. Therefore it is not
enough to use those softwares to help students finishing their translation tasks. In
translation, Computer-Assisted Translation Tools, also known as CAT Tools, such
as Google Translator Toolkit (GTT), Wordfast, and Trados are some examples of
tools or softwares used in translation field. CAT Tools is divided into two kinds,
that are Machine Translation (MT) and Translation Memory (TM) with all of their
own strenghts and weaknesses.
According to Korosec (2011), Machine Translation (MT) is already used by
many translators experts to help them finishing their work especially for the
purpose of quick information gisting and for preparing the first draft or
translation. In addition, many students and translators are leaving the traditional
model of translation that use paper and pen only. The use of technology can help
them increase the productivity and effectivity in translation activity (Odacioglu &
Kokturk, 2015). Moreover, Odacioglu and Kokturk (2015) believed that teaching
technological tool for students is indispensable.
In non-native English-speaking countries, the students tend to face some
difficulties in learning their materials because the books or the sources are written
in English. In other hand, to some students, some difficulties in writing are caused
by their low ability to put their ideas in an English language sentences (Ariyanti,
2016; Fareed, Ashraf & Bilal, 2016; Husin & Nurbayani, 2017; Hasan & Subekti,
2017). To solve this problem, they have to do translation activity to ease them
understanding the materials, to help them in writing, and, the most important is, to
help them doing the translation project. By utilizing the technology, the
translation skill can be very helpful in the process of learning English books and
sources. Therefore, this study aims to find out the students’ preferences in using
technology in translation process. In this study, the translation tool chosen is a
web application named Google Translator Toolkit.
In addition, for the significance of this study, it is expected by the researcher
that the result of this study can give new contribution to the knowledge of English
Language Teaching, especially in the teaching translation skill. It is also expected
that this study can be additional references on the study of Computer-Assisted
Translation (CAT) Tool in the future because there are very limited number of
research regarding the use of CAT Tool in translation activity.
The study discussing the use of CAT Tool in English language teaching
(ELT), especially in translation, is still in limited number. All of them are not
survey study aimed to know students’ preferences on the use of CAT Tool like the
current article. Some of them are conceptual paper which discuss the possibility of
integrating CAT Tool into language learning and (Medvedev, 2016; Fernandez-
Parra, 2016). In detail, Medvedev’s article focused on how Google Translate can
be effectively used to introduce and practice vocabulary items. There are also
many research focused on the use of CAT Tool and its translation method had
been conducted (Christensen & Schjoldager, 2016; Escartin, 2013). However,

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research regarding the students preference on particular CAT Tool is never be
conducted before. Thus, researcher felt that this topic is worth to be conducted.
This paper was divided into some parts. The first part is backgound of the
research. Then the second part is talking about literature review and followed by
the method used in this research which is included in the third part of this
research. Furthermore, the next parts are the results, conclusion, and implication
of the findings.

2. Literature Review
2.1. Computer Assisted Translation Tool
According Fantinuoli (2016), Computer Assisted Translation Tool or CAT Tool is
a computer software created to help people, especially translators, producing a good
translation in short time which include at least three aspects, that are translation memory
(TM), a terminology recognition module and an editor. By using CAT Tool in the
translation process, someone can work effectively and efficiently so that they can save
much time. In translation job, costumers want their file to be translated as soon as
possible. Therefore, CAT Tool is very beneficial and helpful for the translators to do their
translation job. It will help them to translate the same term consistently and increase the
productivity of the translators. Further explanation on CAT Tool categories will be
discussed in the next part.

2.2. Translation Memory and Machine Translation

As mentioned above, CAT Tool is divided into two categories; a machine
translation (MT) and a translation memory (TM). Translation memory is different
with machine translation. Translation memory does not have the ability to
translate the text automatically like machine translation. Therefore, translation
memory can be described as a tool and software that store the database of both
source and target text in order to promote translation reuse of the same term in the
future (Macklovitch, 2000; Seljan & Pavuna, n.d.; Somers, 2013). Usually,
translation memory will keep the term from segments within the text. Here,
segment can be the whole text, a paragraph, or even shorter such as a sentence.
The advantages of using translation memory are; 1) enhancing translators to work
faster because the translation of identical terms will be kept and translators does
not need to translate it one by one anymore, 2) ensuring the consistency of the
translation, and 3) gaining suggestion and result of translated version of certain
words in the past.
Machine translation is a system or program of computer that provide the
translation product with or without human assistance (Saini & Sahula, 2015;
Hutchins, 1995; Korosec, 2011; Baker & Saldanha, 2011). In a simple way,
machine translation is a machine that translate the text or a translation which is
provided by a machine or computer. There is a debate regarding the distinction of
machine translation and CAT Tool. Some people said that CAT Tool is machine
translation itself. Both of them are the same.
The very basic ability of machine translation is to translate one particular
text of source language to particular text of target language. It was designed to
provide high quality and quick translation product for the users. Although it was
created to help users providing the good quality of translation, yet, in fact, the
final result of machine translation is usually disappointing. The users have to
recheck the translation result and not often they have to revise it. Nevertheless, the

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errors made by the machine translation is not the same with errors made by human
(Hutchins, 1995).
Google Translate is the most common example of machine translation.
When people put some sentences to the Google Translate column, it will
immediately appears the translated version of the text and it can be seen that the
translation is extremely terrible. Remember that Google Translate is a machine. It
does not always know the structures, grammar, specific term in specific field, and
cultural context of the text therefore the result is not always accurate as well. It
will be very risky to rely on machine translation to translate the text since its
disadvantages will decrease the quality of the translation product.
Talking about Google Translate, it is different with Google Translator
Toolkit (GTT). Most of people only know Google Translate as a machine
translation provided by Google. In fact, there is another machine translation
owned by Google, it is Google Translator Toolkit. Basically, GTT is higher level
of Google Translate. It can be seen from the description given by Google in its
page, saying that Google Translate is an instant online translator whereas Google
Translator Toolkit is an online translation editor with many features offered there.
By using Google Translator Toolkit, people can edit and modify the translated
version given by Google, then collaborate and share the project with other people.
In addition, Google Translator Toolkit have translation memory and glossaries to
support the translation process. from those discussion above, there are one
research question addressed in this research as follows;

1. Do the students prefer using Google Translator Toolkit as Computer-

Assisted Translation (CAT) Tools for their translation activity or other CAT
Tool?

3. Methodology
This research used survey design in which the researchers do not have
ability to control or manipulate the variables as in an experimental design. The
survey design was chosen since it can be used to investigate and describe the
preference of translation students of English Department of UIN Malang on
Google Translator Toolkit for their translation activity.

3.1 Participants
The research was carried out in State Islamic University Maulana Malik
Ibrahim of Malang, Faculty of Humanity. The respondent of this study was
focused on the students of English Letters Department who are joining the
translation course. Since this is an elective course, the amount of students of this
course is 25 students. Unfortunately, only 16 students wanted to give their
answers to the questionnaire given by the researcher.

3.2. Research Instrument

The instrument for this study is questionnaire which in form of Yes-No
question and 5-likert scale. The questionnaire consists of 8 questions pertaining
students’ preference for using GTT. The questionnaires were sent to the
participant in the form of link to Google Forms via Whatsapp group. After
collecting the data, the researcher changed the data in the form of diagram

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percentage in spreadsheet format. The result of diagram percentage will be the
guiding point to answer the research question of this study. The method used by
researchers to analyze the data is mixed method which is using both quantitative
and qualitative method.

4. Results

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 In the questionnaire given to the respondents, there are eight questions
related to the students’ preferences for GTT in their translating process. The first
part consists of three yes/no questions. The first question is “Are you familiar with
GTT?”. The result showed that 87.5% of the sixteen respondents are familiar with
GTT. It can be concluded that most of the students are familiar with GTT. This
happen because translation students of UIN Malang were taught how to use
several CAT Tools in translation, which one of them and very basic is Google
Translator Toolkit. Then, the second question is about the students’ knowledge
about the other translation tools besides GTT. Thirteen respondents or 81.3%
know the alternative translation tools besides GTT. Although they knew other
tools beside the GTT, unfortunately they did not mention how many tools do they
know and what are all they. The next question is about the preference of the
students whether they use CAT Tool or not. The result showed 62.5% of the
respondents prefer using GTT rather than manual translation. From the results
above, it can be concluded that most of the students prefer using GTT rather than
manual translation process or traditional paper and pen translation. The reasons of
their preference using GTT will be identified from their answer of second part of
the questionnaire.
The second part of questionnaire consists of 5 items which are in form of
5-likert scale. These questions are intended to explore students’ reason in
choosing or leaving GTT for their translation work. The findings of the data
(68.8%) showed that the translation results of GTT is not always accurate.
However, some students still prefer to use GTT because six respondents (37.5%)
strongly agree and five respondents (31.3%) agree that GTT can save much time

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than manual translation process. In addition, using GTT is helpful to them
(37.5%) since it can give them the first draft of translation of their work (Korosec,
2011) which does not provided by other translation tools, such as Trados. It
proved that even though the translation result of machine translation, in this term
is Google Translator Toolkit, is not always accurate, students still prefer to utilize
it in order to get the insight from the basic translation draft and to save much time.
In accordance of the preference using GTT, the results of data showed that only
five students (31.3%) strongly agree and agree to recommend GTT to their peers.
While the majority of the students (8 students) were in neutral side. The reason of
this finding might be because the translation result of GTT, as a machine
translation, is not always accurate. Therefore they did not want to recommend it to
other people.

5. Conclusion
This research showed that most of students know several translation tool,
including Google Translator Toolkit. Despite knowing the other tools, they still
prefer Google Translator Toolkit for its advantages. They felt that Google
Translator Toolkit can save much time and provide a first draft of translation
product which will be very beneficial for them to gain the quick information
gisting of the text.

6. Implication of the Findings

This research is beneficial for the development of technology in English
Language Teaching (ELT). Using technology as a support in teaching and
learning especially ELT is important. Google Translator Toolkit is one of the
applications to help learner translate certain language to another language, in this
case English language to Indonesian language or vice versa. The result of this
study is most of the students prefer to use Google Translator Toolkit to help them
translating their work. Therefore, teachers should implement the technology in the
English classroom including translation course because, as stated before,
translation skill can help students improve their other skills such as sentence
structure, vocabulary, and grammar.

References
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Volume 16 (2), 263-277. Retrieved from https://journal.iain-
samarinda.ac.id/index.php/dinamika_ilmu/article/view/274
Baker, M., Saldanha, G. (2011). Routledge Encycopledia of Translation Studies.
London: Routledge
Brown, H.D., Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by Principles: An Alternative Approach to
Language Pedagogy. White Plains: Pearson Education.
Christensen, T.P., Schjoldager, A. (2016). Computer-aided Translation Tools –
The Uptake and Use by Danish Translation Service Providers. The Journal
of Specialised Translation Issue 25. Retrieved from
http://www.jostrans.org/issue25/art_christensen.pdf
Escartin, C.P. (2013). An Introduction to Machine Translation: History, Types
and Challenges. Retrieved from

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 https://blog.hig.no/ontologies/files/2013/05/Presentation_Carla.pdf
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nslation_technologies_on_language_production
Fareed, M., Ashraf, A. Bilal, M. (2016). ESL Learners' Writing Skills: Problems,
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ng_Skills_Problems_Factors_and_Suggestions
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into Language Learning. Retrieved from
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED565825.pdf
Guerra, A. F. (2014). The Usefulness of Translation in Foreign Language
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uence=1
Hasan, Subekti, N. B., (2017). The Correlation between Vocabulary Mastery and
Writing Skill of Secondary School Students. Journal of English Language
and Language Teaching Vol.1, No.2. Retrieved from
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Husin, M. S., Nurbayani, E. (2017). The Ability of Indonesian EFL Learners in
Writing Academic Papers. Dinamika Ilmu Vol. 17 No. 2. Retrieved from
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1169442.pdf
Hutchins, W.J. (1995). Machine Translation: A Brief History. Retrieved from
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Korošec, M. K. (2011a). Applicability and Challenges of Using Machine
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lj.si/elope/article/view/3226/2941
Korošec, M. K. (2011b). The Internet, Google Translate and Google Translator
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Macklovitch, E. (2000). Two Types of Translation Memories. Proceedings of the
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Saini, S., Sahula, V. (2015). A Survey of Machine Translation Techniques and
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 3695a.pdf
Somers, H. (2013). Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Machine
Translation. Retrieved from
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Odacioglu, M. C. (2015). The Effect of Technology on Translation Students in
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main.pdf?_tid=a2df7ac6-df0f-11e7-b65f-
00000aab0f27&acdnat=1513064579_02e9180e92d20e601199f193e93b693
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 APPENDICES
Questionnaires

This questionnaire intended to measure students’ preference on Google

Translation Toolkit or manual translation process.
Please answer the question truthfully
A.
1. Are you familiar with Google Translator Toolkit?
a. Yes, I am b. No, I am not
2. Do you know another Translation Toolkit other than Google Translator
Toolkit?
a. Yes, I do b. No, I do not
3. Do your prefer using Google Translator Toolkit to manual translation
process?
a. Yes, I do b. No, I do not

B.
1. I always use Google Translator Toolkit rather than manual translation
process
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
2. I think using Google Translator Toolkit saves more time than manual
process
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
3. I think using Google Translator Toolkit is more helpful rather than using
manual translation process
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
4. The result of GTT in translating the source text is accurate
a. Strongly Agree

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 b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
5. Based on my previous answers, I do recommend Google Translator
Toolkit to my friends if they need help in translating documents.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree

Answers

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