Technical terms and Machine Translation

When we rely on machine translation to translate technical terms, we may be surprised at the result.

When communication is institutional, please don’t fall into that temptation; it is a mistake that can jeopardize the image and credibility of your product.

This image shows a disastrous translation—a black ink pen with thick and permanent stroke.

Stroke is a polysemic word and may refer to the rupture of a blood vessel in Portuguese. The MT had chosen precisely this meaning.

So, this pen is a black ink pen with a severe health problem, at the Portuguese translation.