Geo Pulse #51 — Which MT engine wins, by language pair

Geo Pulse #51 — Which MT engine wins, by language pair
This week: 'use DeepL' is wrong almost as often as it's right.

— DeepL → leads on European pairs (DE, NL, PL, RU) and JA→EN; its formality control is genuinely useful for DE/JA. Coverage is narrow — many GEO languages simply aren't there.
— Google Translate → widest language coverage, the only realistic option for African and smaller Asian languages; quality is mid but it's the fallback that always exists.
— Microsoft / Amazon Translate → boring but strong for bulk API workflows and CJK at scale; pick on price and infra, not quality alone.
— Specialized (Naver Papago for KO, Youdao for ZH) → in-market engines often beat the Western ones on slang and tone for their home language.

Rule: there's no best engine, only best-per-pair. Run a 5-sentence bake-off per target language before committing.

Credit: the per-language MT comparisons in the annual 'State of MT' reports and Intento's engine benchmarks.