So even though these letters TRANSLATE to sound like A, B, C, D, etc. etc. they obviously do not LOOK like that—and therefore, you cannot type them in like that. And for that reason, because Google Translates relies on the A, B, C, D, etc. characters, cannot directly translate. …It says "type phonetically", cuz it takes in the sounds of the letters you type, and tries to translate those. -Which is actually accurate in a sense. So if you type out in the roman alphabet, what a word in arabic sounds like, google translate accordingly. ….Unfortunately, you’d really have to be a native speaker in order to understand if it’s being translated correctly (as a lot of words SOUND alike), and ironically, if you were a native speaker, you wouldn’t need google translate in the first place.

As a native arabic speaker, I do have to hand it to google.They really do a good job compared to most other sites. But again, you would need someone who knows a little something about the language in the first place, to discern it.

Anyhoo, that’s why it says "type phonetically", cuz ur keyboard is not equipped to type in the arabic letters. ….If you want to know something specifically, email me. I’m not a pro, but I’ll try my best to help.
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don’t know how good it is
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or you can use babelfish (search it on google)
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you can switch it from English to French or from English to any other language!
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