Put crottin de chèvre into Google Translate, and you'll be told it means goat dung.
So if it appeared on a menu, you might pass. Alas, you would be ruling out a delicious cheese made of goat's milk that is often served as a starter in France.
Such misunderstandings are why Google admits that its free tool, used by about 500 million people, is not intended to replace human translators.
Tourists might accept a few misunderstandings because the technology is cheap and convenient. But when the stakes are higher, perhaps in business, law or medicine, these services often fall short.
"Using Google Translate can lead to some serious errors, especially when words have multiple meanings, which is often the case in fields such as law or engineering," says Samantha Langley, a former lawyer who is now a court-approved French-to-English legal translator based in Meribel, France.
That is not to say professional translators do not use computer assisted translation (CAT) tools. More sophisticated applications can help them take the donkey work out of repetitive translations.
CATs are even used as part of modern language degree courses these days. So how good are they?
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