THE USE OF TRANSLATION TOOL IN EFL LEARNING: DO MACHINE TRANSLATION GIVE POSITIVE IMPACT IN LANGUAGE LEARNING?

Abstract

Translation tools are commonly used for translating a text written in one language (source language) into another language (target language). They are used to help translators in translating big numbers of translation works in effective time. There are three types of translation tools being studied in the article entitled Machine Translation Tools: Tools of the Translator’s Trade written by Peter Katsberg published in 2012. They are Fully Automated Machine Translation (or FAMT), Human Aided Machine Translation (or HAMT) and Machine Aided Human Translation (or MAHT). Katsberg analyzed how each translation tool works, the naturality and approriateness of its translation and the compatibility of using it. In this digital era, translation tools are not only popular among translators but also among EFL learners. Beginning with the use of portable dictionary such as Alfalink and expanding to the more sopisticated translation tool such as Google Translate. Some novice learners usually use this translation tools in doing their task without recorrecting the translation result. This happens perhaps because they do not have enough background knowledge to evaluate the translation result. Thus, it will be better when the learners have good mastery in basic English and train them to be aware in evaluating the result from translation tools. On the other words, Human Aided Machine Translation may be the wise choice to do translation task effectively and efficiently particularly in managing the time.