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Yes, that generally happens as google translater translates words as individuals and not the sentence as a whole so it ends up not making complete sense, but it is worse translating arabic to english. However it usually depends on the sentence itself, Microsoft translator usually works better.
Google translates poorly in all directions, however it might do that in a more obvious way when it translates into Arabic because of different reasons. Firstly, those who programmed the English/Arabic dictionary might not be good at the two languages at the same level. I mean, their level of knowledge in one language is not as good as their knowledge in the other language. Secondly, the vowels might pose a big problem. In English language short vowel sounds are represented by letters in the English Alphabet. However, in Arabic they are represented by symbols placed on or under the letter which is affected by that sound. The programmers have not reached that level of progress to program this software accordingly. Thirdly, word order in the sentence in Arabic is different than it is in English. Google translates word for word and not the meaning of the sentence as a whole. That is again is the result of the quality of the programming.
There are a lot of other reasons, however, I think it all comes down to two main reasons,
1) lack of knowledge of one or of both languages on the part of the programmers.
2) the limited input to add into the features of the Arabic Language caused by either lack of expertise in programming or programming hasn't yet reached the level of progress to make it possible to include all the features of Arabic language.
If you want to have an accurate translation, true to the spirit of the original, you have to know the culture. That is why only a person that knows and understands the language and the culture can translate words into another language, never technology.
Google translate contains a database of words and their meaning for each language, it is very good in translating single words and gives you multiple meanings for almost every word that conveys different meanings, however; it is almost impossible for google or any other software/program/website to translate sentences because of the infinite number of word arrangements and sentence structures that are out there, especially when it comes to Arabic, the pronunciation of a word could change it's meaning, now let's multiply that factor by a sentence composed of ten words, the result is a very chaotic sentence. In short: Google translate does not understand grammar, it only understands vocabulary :)
google usually translates each word independent regardless of the context of the sentence besides that words have different meanings according to the contexts.
Because the language as a culture not every word gives the same meaning in every sentence ,so translation should be as a sentence not a word .
firstly, Machine Translation is poor translation in general. since google translate is so, it is also poor untrusted translation. from the other point of Arabic to English or vice verse, it is also week. if we ask the question (why is that?) It is difficult to answer this question, but in my point of view; it is maybe because the default Translation Language is Eng is because the lexical data entered to the program which many not accumulate all the expected translation process needed in addition to world of changing lexical system of languages due to the innovative world we are living in.
based on the above mentioned we can say that Machine Translation is not only poor but sometimes it is wrong translation, but a skillful translator still can choose his way between the roads to a better translation through using google translate.
This is not easy to answer because it has to do with the frequency and the needs. I think that there are already some flaws in the translations from one language to another because it has to do with the idioms and the colloquial language.Therefore you cannot expect it to be perfect .
I strongly believe that since English is the accepted 'Lingua Franca' Arabic takes a subordinate place as far as importance of reaching out to the far corners of the world is concerned. Once Google realizes the importance of Arabic over the next few decades I'm sure it'll start focusing on the grammatical and linguistic details of the language and improve it translation efforts for a wider and enriching appeal! Economic and political aspects play a significant role of course.
Because it makes literal translation on the lexical level, without taking into consideration the syntactic level, sentence structure, context, or readability
Because it depends on the context
