Best free translator?

[Mag]

There's loads of free translators around ("language translator" "free translator" "itranslate", etc), but whats the most accurate one? Or do they all use the same source?

[Alli]

As a teacher of world languages, I highly recommend not using a translator at all. Direct word for word translations quite often make you look dumb and don't convey the meaning of what you meant anyway. Stick with a website like English to French, Italian, German & Spanish Dictionary - WordReference.com and just look up the important words as you need them.

[Badshah]

I have only ever used iTranslate and do not endorse it. It gets confused easily and often cannot or does not translate things that I think it ought to do. I will monitor this thread for news of something better.