Well, I also have tried MTL because the TN went MIA, but then i gave up because it frying my brain cells more than the series healing my soul. A few points that i can say : 1. Don't try to dump the whole chapter into the translation machine. Translate per sentence, and try to refine the translation after each paragraph. 2. If you already able to understand the language if spoken (for example, i can understand what characters said in Anime without subs, but i can't read the runes), try re-read your translation by listening the original text (you can do this in google translate). Doing this can proof your MTL more. 3. Create glossary for often used words, like names or magic. There are a lot of tools to translate names and the likes (like that one extension in firefox, forgot the name). 4. Stop translating if the series has a lot of puns!
found this after googling: https://forum.novelupdates.com/posts/285554/ Higher up in the thread there's a link to the site, but there was NSFW (porn) ads on that site so I closed it, but @xTachibana 's link still worked. Anyway, it looks like this (I just copied the title of the first best Japanese novel I saw on NU, Harassing Thief Girl): Spoiler: screenshot I'm not really 100% sure how to use it though, since I just got it now myself as well, but I'm guessing all those "connection error" is because it's an old version or something. But still, it seems pretty neat. Being able to get the translation from multiple MTs in one place I mean. And it has some kind of glossary/substituion/find-and-replace function as well, which I assume works on them all.
It's because a lot of those sites changed their API's and the program can't autoupdate the api links XD You are correct, any imported dictionary/replace functions work on all of them, although I would likely not use the replace function unless it's say, a funky looking name, and you can just convert it to what it means in Romaji to save you time.
You'd think with the technology they have today, someone would have created a translation software with 90% accuracy.
As someone who speaks multiple languages, it's not possible. You cannot translate nuance and what not from 1 language to the other, it's just not possible, it requires a certain amount of knowledge of both languages to be able to properly convert the INTENT behind the words/sentences into another language. No robot with current day tech will ever be able to understand the intent behind what someone spoke, or the nuance of their line itself. For example, a robot can't tell when text is being sarcastic, but humans can, and we can translate that to make it more obvious. True translation is not translating word for word after all. It gets even muddier when you're talking about slang and colloquial sayings.