A reliable translation service is a reliable tool when you want to understand the content of a website written in a foreign language or to facilitate smooth communication with foreigners.
For example, people who use Google Chrome have a tool called “Google Translate” that allows them to instantly translate foreign language websites. However, there are many cases where the translation results are unnatural sentences.
In such cases, using DeepL, a highly accurate translation service, is very convenient as it provides a more natural translation process. In this article, we will explain the details of the high-precision translation service DeepL and the differences between it and Google Translate. If you are dissatisfied with translation tools such as Google Translate, please refer to this article and also try using DeepL.
What is DeepL?
DeepL is a machine translation engine developed by the German-based company DeepL. Speaking of machine translation engines, “Google Translate” and “Bing Translate” provided by Microsoft are popular, but some people may not have heard much about DeepL.
DeepL is not a major IT company like Google or Microsoft, but a small venture company. However, the accuracy of DeepL’s translation technology is said to surpass that of Google Translate and Bing Translate.
Overview of DeepL
Now, let’s explain DeepL in detail. First, let’s take a look at the overview of the tool.
Starting in Japan from 2020
DeepL is a tool that can also be used in Japan, but it has only been available in Japan since 2020. DeepL itself was announced in August 2017, and compared to other machine translation engines, it became a hot topic for “translating sentences that are fluent and natural.” At the time of announcement, it was not available in Japanese, but it became available in Japanese from March 2020.
Translation method
Although detailed information about DeepL’s translation method has not been made public, a technology called “deep learning” is used.
This deep learning is also used in Google Translate, but DeepL uses a method called “convolutional neural network (CNN)” that can perform more complex processing than Google Translate. Therefore, DeepL allows for more natural translation than Google Translate.
Languages that can be translated
As of March 2023, DeepL supports the following 29 languages and over 800 combinations.
(Source:
DeepL – “Supported languages of DeepL Pro”
)
Regarding English, you can choose between American English and British English, depending on the language of the original text you are trying to translate.
DeepL pricing plan
DeepL has free and paid plans. Even the free plan provides highly accurate translations as a translation service, but there are differences in functionality between the free plan and the paid plan.
What you can do with the free plan
The free plan has the following limitations compared to the paid plan.
If you don’t translate long texts, the free plan has enough features. If you want to translate long texts exceeding 1,500 characters, a paid plan is more convenient.
What you can do with the paid plan
DeepL’s paid plan (DeepL Pro) has the following three paid plans.
The features of each paid plan differ as follows.
| Starter | Advanced | Ultimate | |
| Single sign-on | 35 people or more | 35 people or more | |
| Number of files that one person can upload | 5 files/month | 20 files/month | 100 files/month |
| Number of glossaries | 1 piece | 2,000 pieces | 2,000 pieces |
|
Translation support tools |
× | 0 | 0 |
Starter is recommended for individuals and teams, and Advanbed is recommended for business use.
If you use Ultimate, you can use it without stress.
Advantages of using DeepL
For those who want to translate texts, DeepL has the following major advantages:
World-class translation accuracy
DeepL’s translations are said to be among the top in the world. DeepL conducts “blind tests” alongside translation tools from Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Out of all the translation results, we found that the results translated by DeepL were the best.
In addition, when one company had the body of an internal email translated using the translation services of DeepL, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, the result was that DeepL’s translation results were the most natural and accurate. Ta.
There are various translation tools, but DeepL can be said to be a translation service with world-class accuracy.
Cost is also low
The cost of DeepL Pro varies depending on the services offered and usage plan, but it is generally relatively inexpensive. There are several translation services, such as DeepL, that offer subscription services.
Below is a comparison of the costs of DeepL’s Advanced plan and other translation services offered in a subscription format.
| plan | Monthly fee | |
| DeepL | Advanced | 3,167 yen |
| Trados Studio | Freelance Subscription | 4,000 yen |
| Smartcat | Starter | 13,735 yen ($99) |
(As of July 15, 2023)
DeepL is a service with good cost performance considering its functionality among translation services provided in a subscription format.
Translate whenever you need it
DeepL provides the following types of services:
Therefore, you can easily translate whenever you need it. You can use the smartphone app to translate while you are working on your computer or on the go.
Can be used in various situations
DeepL is widely used in business and academic research due to its high translation accuracy and natural expressiveness. Below are some specific usage examples.
Global companies need to communicate with partners and customers who speak different languages. DeepL is used as a tool to quickly and accurately translate emails, reports, presentation materials, etc. Additionally, when companies expand their products and services to overseas markets, they need to translate manuals and guides into local languages. DeepL is also suitable for translating such technical documents. A company’s customer support team must respond to inquiries in a variety of languages. DeepL is used as a tool to understand customer inquiries and create appropriate answers.
It can also be used in marketing. Businesses can reach a wider audience by translating their websites and marketing materials into multiple languages. DeepL’s natural expressiveness allows it to translate while preserving the nuances of the original text.
It can also be used for academic purposes. Academics and researchers need to read articles and reports in various languages to keep up with the latest research in their fields of expertise. DeepL can be a useful tool for understanding these documents.
What should I be careful about when using DeepL?
DeepL is a highly accurate translation service, but when using it, you need to be careful of the following points.
In Japanese, the meaning can often be understood even if the subject is omitted, but in many foreign languages, the meaning can change if the subject is omitted. Therefore, you will need to add a subject to the original text you want to translate.
Also, even though DeepL is highly accurate, you should not rely too much on the translation results. This is because the following points are still not as accurate as humans.
Regarding the above, I still cannot judge it like a human being. Therefore, the translated results always need to be checked manually.
How to use DeepL?
As mentioned above, there are some caveats to using DeepL, but it can be useful depending on how you use it. The key is to “make the original text easy for DeepL to understand.” To this end, we recommend that you keep the following points in mind when creating your original text.
If something can be written in kanji, the meaning of the word will be more clearly defined if it is written in kanji, so try to write it in kanji as much as possible.
For nouns that have abbreviations, writing the abbreviation can cause mistranslation, so writing the official name will yield more accurate translation results. Also, although you may not be aware of it, compared to other foreign languages, in Japanese, even if words are omitted, the meaning can often be understood from the context.
Therefore, if you supplement the original text with the subject and the object of the subject, you will get a more accurate translation result.
Line breaks used in sentences also affect the translation results. When a line break is included, the text is considered to be separated by that part, which can easily result in unnatural translation results. By keeping the above points in mind when creating the original text and using DeepL, you will be able to obtain translation results that are closer to the intended content.
summary
DeepL is a translation tool that utilizes AI and deep learning, and its accuracy exceeds other translation tools such as Google Translate, Amazon, and Microsoft. This is due to DeepL’s ability to learn and contextualize large amounts of text data. As a result, DeepL provides natural and human-like translations, and its accuracy is rated among the best in the world.
This excellent translation accuracy is highly valued by a wide range of users, from individuals to business professionals. In particular, DeepL has become a powerful tool for companies that do business globally and for academics who work with literature in different languages. The real-time translation feature also facilitates communication between people who speak different languages, helping to overcome cultural and language barriers.
However, no matter how good the translation tool is, the reality is that perfect translation is difficult. Language is made up of many intertwined elements, including culture, history, and social background. Therefore, translation requires not only replacing characters, but also understanding the meaning and nuances behind them and expressing them appropriately. DeepL covers many of them, but the current situation is that it is difficult to perfectly translate everything.
Therefore, when using DeepL, it is important not to take the translation results at face value, but to check them yourself and make corrections and fine-tuning as necessary. Particularly in situations where a high degree of accuracy is required, such as in business or academic research, it is desirable for a person with specialized knowledge to perform the final check.
DeepL greatly helps our communication with its high translation accuracy and convenience. However, on the other hand, our own ability to understand language and its context and use it appropriately remains important. DeepL is a great tool, but it’s just a tool, and the final decision on whether to use it should be made by ourselves. This is an especially important perspective in this day and age, where technology is evolving and AI is deeply embedded in our lives.