[j_w]

As somebody who regularly reads translated works, including the occasional machine translation (MTL), they (MTL) suck. You got a hugely biased result, which you recognize.

Translation is hard. If you're familiar with reading translations from specific languages MTL works have a very specific smell to them, it's a bit hard to describe but it's there. A good translation is miles (kilometers, for those outside of the US) above MTL.

That's not to say that perhaps the latest LLMs will have better translation abilities, but that they are generally crap currently. Maybe they are fine for something very short, but absolutely not for longer content.

[Ekaros]

I read genres where MTL is somewhat commonly used. But good quality human translations take remarkable effort. And even artistic choices. Like choices between transliterating and translating. Or maybe in some cases just doing both for single name or term. And then keeping these choices consistent over substantial works.

And it is not like transliteration is consistent thing. Some cases would prefer the old way. Or existing already common one. Even across entirely different works from different authors.

[j_w]

It definitely takes a lot of work. I've read that it takes a good writer themselves to translate well, since it's such an artistic endeavor.