Apps like Google Translate have only 57% accuracy when translating medical terms.

According to a study conducted by the British Medical Journal, popular translation apps, like Google Translate, have only 57% of accuracy when interpreting medical terms to another language. Researchers used the Google Translate App and translated 10 commonly used medical statements into 26 different languages. Then, they sent these translations to native speakers so they would translate it back to English. If the final translations did not make sense or were just incorrect they were considered as wrong. Minor grammatical errors were allowed.

Continue reading to see what else they discovered...

Out of the 26 languages evaluated (8 Western European, 5 Eastern European, 11 Asian, and 2 African), the African language had the lowest score with only 45% of accuracy. Asian languages had 46% of accuracy, followed by Eastern European with 62%. The most accurate translations came from Western European Languages with 74%. Summarizing: 150 translations were correct (or 57,7%) while 110 were wrong (or 42,3%). The least accurate language was Swahili (spoken in Tanzania and Kenya) with only 10% of accuracy. The most accurate was European Portuguese with 90% of accuracy. 

The best solution is to always request a certified professional interpreter. But to put your patient at ease and start a conversation you can always count with Canopy Speak and its 4000+ medical phrases in 15 languages.

To learn more about Canopy Translate, click HERE. 

To read the full BMJ study, click HERE.