We already know the epic fails that free online automated translation can offer..... Just ask US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton how to say "reset' in Russian.
Thank goodness there are plenty of relief methods that ALSO offer HUMAN translation to achieve a message with quality, precision and a comprehension sent across the language barriers.
A popular free method in the internet is SDL's FreeTranslation.com. 
Yes, most users who just cut and paste away their masterpieces soon end up with either mini horror novels or dramatic comedies. But for users who know better, they also offer (insert Angelic choir here) Human Translation! Web and Professional translations are also offered.
Guess who performs such accurate work? Now, if that burned your grey matter here is a more challenging question:
Guess who some of these beautiful people come from?
The creators of FreeTranslation decided to join forces with OneHourTranslation.com to 'hire' their translators. It does not stop there... ANYONE who is a member of OneHourTranslation has the immediate (literally!) opportunity to be one of those 'temp agents'.
OHT states in their pages:
One Hour Translation provides professional, fast and affordable human translation services, available 24/7.
Our community of over 10000 professional certified translators around the world guarantee you will get high quality translation FAST!
They cover translations, proofreading, and an email based service is also available (Transbox). They recruit certified professionals. I happen to be one of them. I am not rich out of their service yet (well.. who is???? anywhere???) but they do offer the opportunity quite often to be a translator from a few words to a number of pages. It's a pot luck draw. And basically if I am not checking my emails, I can always check their open project page to see if there is anything available.
How much does their outrageous membership cost? A whopping US$1.00 when I became a member. Through PayPal. For verification purposes. Their approval also consisted of a background check. After a few days I was 'certified' as a translator.
Painlessly. And one buck less...
Knowing how much US users go to freetranslation's page to chug out their messages, I would like to be 'in' on the few souls that actually use the human touch for theirs.
if you want to reap in that harvest feel free to join too!
<-click on the image and you'll be taken to their website.
<a href="http://www.onehourtranslation.com/affiliate/samiris"><img src="/FasterWeb/0.gif" alt="professional translation" border=0 onload="_fwii.lh(this, 'http://www.onehourtranslation.com/public/images/banners/set2/translation-services-125x125.jpg');"></a>
