Early attempts to process natural language by mechanical means or machines date back to the thirties of this century. The first machine translation applications are known from the fifties. In view of the long history of machine translation, it is rather strange that even in the mid-nineties this technology is used quite rarely in the daily work of translators. Based on eight years' experience as a user of machine translation (starting with LOGOS and changing to METAL), I will discuss the reasons why translators are still reluctant to use machine translation for their everyday work.