My experience with dirt cheap contractors you're talking about is that they simply throw what you put into Google Translate / an LLM themselves. So yes, strictly speaking, doing that yourself is better than paying someone else to do it for you. But it's not better than hiring a real professional, so let's not pretend it is. It is what it is: cheap. Be up front about that.
And I think using machine translation, and being honest about it, is completely understandable for some tiny startup that just wants their website localized. I think it is completely and totally unacceptable for a language learning application, though.
And I think using machine translation, and being honest about it, is completely understandable for some tiny startup that just wants their website localized. I think it is completely and totally unacceptable for a language learning application, though.