FOUND IN TRANSLATION

Accuracy of Google Translate in medical communication

Sumant Patil, Patrick Davies

Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, A complex and nuanced medical, ethical, and treatment translated across all languages was “Your husband has the
Nottingham Children’s Hospital, discussion with patients whose knowledge of the local lan- opportunity to donate his organs” (88.5%), while “Your
Nottingham, UK
guage is inadequate remains challenging. child has been fitting” was translated accurately in only
Correspondence to: P Davies
[email protected] We recently treated a very sick child in our paediatric 7.7% (table). Swahili scored lowest with only 10% correct,
Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g7392 intensive care unit. The parents did not speak English, and while Portuguese scored highest at 90%.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.g7392 there were no human translators available. Reluctantly we There were some serious errors. For instance, “Your child is
resorted to a web based translation tool. We were uncertain fitting” translated in Swahili to “Your child is dead.” In Polish
whether Google Translate was accurately translating our “Your husband has the opportunity to donate his organs”
complex medical phrases.3 4 Fortunately our patient recov- translated to “Your husband can donate his tools.” In Mar-
ered, and a human translator later reassured us that we had athi “Your husband had a cardiac arrest” translated to “Your
conveyed information accurately. husband had an imprisonment of heart.” “Your wife needs
We aimed to evaluate the accuracy and usefulness of to be ventilated” in Bengali translated to “Your wife wind
Google Translate in translating common English medical movement needed.”
statements.
Discussion
Methods Google Translate is an easily available free online
Ten commonly used medical statements were chosen by machine translation tool for 80 languages worldwide.5
author consensus. These were translated via Google Trans- However, we have found limited usefulness for medical
late to 26 languages. Translations only were sent to native phrases used in communications between patients and
speakers of each of these languages and translated back doctor.3 6 7
to English by them. The returned English phrases were We found many translations that were completely wrong.
compared with the originals and assessed for meaning. If Google Translate uses statistical matching to translate
translations did not make sense or were factually incorrect rather than a dictionary/grammar rules approach, which
they were considered as wrong. Minor grammatical errors leaves it open to nonsensical results.4 8
were allowed. In today’s world “just Google it” is considered to be the
In today’s world answer to everything, but for health related questions this
“just Google it” Results should be treated with caution.9 Google Translate should
is considered to Ten medical phrases were evaluated in 26 languages (8 not be used for taking consent for surgery, procedures, or
Western European, 5 Eastern European, 11 Asian, and 2 research from patients or relatives unless all avenues to find
be the answer to
African), giving 260 translated phrases. Of the total trans- a human translator have been exhausted, and the proce-
everything, but lations, 150 (57.7%) were correct while 110 (42.3%) were dure is clinically urgent. We have, however, not assessed the
for health related wrong. African languages scored lowest (45% correct), accuracy of human translators, who cannot be assumed to
questions this followed by Asian languages (46%), Eastern European be perfect and may be subject to confidentiality breaches.
should be treated next with 62%, and Western European languages were Competing interests and references are on thebmj.com.
with caution most accurate at 74%. The medical phrase that was best Accepted: 14 November 2014

List of medical phrases translated via Google Translate

Sample or most Percentage
Phrase translated common error correct
Your wife is stable Your wife cannot fall over 53.8
Your husband had a Your husband’s heart was 53.8
cardiac arrest imprisoned
Your husband had a heart Your husband’s heart was 73.1
attack attacked
Your wife needs to be Your wife needs to be aired 26.9
ventilated
Your child’s condition is life Your child’s state is not life 69.2
threatening stopping
Your child has been fitting Your child has been 7.7
constructing
Your child will be born Your child is sleeping early 76.9
premature
Your husband has the Your husband is now ready to 88.5
opportunity to donate his donate
organs
We will need your consent We need your consent for 61.5
DUNCAN SMITH

for operation operating (such as machinery)

Did he have high fever at Your home temperature was 65.4
home? high

52 20-27 December 2014 | the bmj

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