Google Translate’s Performance in Translating Commercial Contracts: A Linguistics Errors Analysis

Abstract

The study investigates the effectiveness of Google Translate (GT) in translating five commercial contracts from English to Vietnamese, focusing on the identification and analysis of linguistic errors. Translations of five commercial contracts were selected for data analysis due to their variety in terms of purpose, length, and linguistic complexity, all of which offer an extensive basis for assessing translation performance. A systematic approach was employed to assess translation quality, utilizing quantitative methods to classify errors into categories including Sense (SENS), Terminology (TERM), Clarity (CL), and Reference Documents (RD). The findings reveal that TERM 
errors are the most prevalent, accounting for 30.91% of total errors, followed by CL errors at 19.39%. The study highlights GT’s challenges in accurately interpreting technical terms and maintaining clarity, which are crucial for legal documents. It emphasizes the necessity of post-editing by human translators to enhance translation accuracy and reliability.