Machine translation has improved enormously, but the quality of your output still depends heavily on the quality of your input. These habits make a measurable difference.

1. Write complete sentences

Fragments give the engine no context. "Bank" alone is ambiguous; "I walked along the river bank" is not.

2. Avoid idioms when precision matters

"Let us touch base next week" may translate literally and confusingly. "Let us speak again next week" travels much better.

3. Use the tone setting

Formal and informal registers differ enormously in Spanish, German, Japanese and dozens of other languages. Setting tone explicitly beats hoping the engine guesses right.

4. Keep sentences reasonably short

Very long sentences with several subordinate clauses are where errors creep in. Break them up.

5. Translate back to check

Reverse translation is a quick sanity check for anything important.

6. Get a human review for high stakes

Contracts, medical instructions and marketing headlines deserve a professional pass.