ChatGPT's interactive nature makes it a standout translation tool.
With other translation tools, you provide a text, you get a translation,
and that's it. Whether it is the best translation you can get doesn't
matter—you're stuck with it.
With ChatGPT, you can customize
translations to suit your specific needs and provide feedback on
adjustments you'd love to see. For example, you can adjust the tone and
style and take into account some cultural connotations and regional
differences in the meaning of words, something purpose-built translation
tools like Google Translate can not do.
All you need to do is
provide the text you want to translate, specify the language you want to
translate it to, and ChatGPT will handle the rest.
1. Provide Context
One
of the key advantages of ChatGPT over popular translation tools like
Google Translate is its ability to accurately consider the context of a
text when generating translations. Considering context can be the
difference between simply translating individual words in a sentence and
generating a translation that truly reflects the author's or speaker's
intention.
Take the Spanish sentence “Gracias por preguntar, pero
estoy bastante seguro aquí” for instance. Google Translate produces
"Thanks for asking, but I'm pretty sure here" as the translation. While
this isn't entirely wrong, depending on the context, the sentence could
mean, "Thanks for asking, but I'm safe here."
Of course, Google
Translate will provide the same translation no matter how many times you
attempt to translate it because it doesn't have a way to recognize
contextual nuance. As per the screenshot above, ChatGPT will attempt to
provide the most accurate translation depending on the provided context.
Providing context can significantly improve the quality of your
translation. If you are not sure how to provide context, here are some
inspirations:
"Translate [text to translate in Filipino] to
English from the perspective of a native Filipino speaker" should try to
maintain as many cultural connotations as possible in a translation.
"Translate [text to translate] to English from the perspective of
someone discussing the COVID-19 pandemic" should use appropriate medical
terms instead of generic words.
"Translate [text to translate]
to English. The text discusses a battle during WWII" should use
appropriate military and historical terms.
2. Declare the Type of Text
Another
important factor that can increase the accuracy of your translation is
outright declaring the kind of text you're trying to translate. For
example, is it an idiom, a song, a financial document, or an ordinary
text? Simply letting ChatGPT know what you're trying to translate gives
the chatbot an edge toward providing more accurate translations.
Instead
of simply using a prompt like "Translate [text to translate] to [target
language]." You should ideally use alternatives like:
Translate the [Financial report | poem | song | Bible portion | proverb] in quotes to [target language]
Translate [text to translate] to [target language]. The text to be
translated is a [military report | Medical document | Drug prescription]
The prompts above or similar ones help ChatGPT use relevant or
industry-specific context when generating a translation. Although
ChatGPT sometimes recognizes the right niche words to use for
translation, you'll have to explicitly prompt it to do so using type
declaration in some cases.
3. Use Style Transfer
Sometimes,
when translating text, the translation might be too technical or simply
inappropriate for the target audience. Using style transfer in ChatGPT
can help adjust the tone and style of a translation to match the target
audience or industry. So, if you're translating a legal document, the
translation could retain the author's original meaning while using more
layman's wording. In the example below, I translated a soccer commentary
from Spanish to English, first without style transfer and then using
style transfer.
The translation above uses the closest English
equivalent of the corresponding Spanish words, while the one below uses
words suitable for an audience not acquainted with soccer terms.
However, it is interesting to note that both translations are considered
accurate.
An English translation using style transfer
To use style transfer when translating, use prompts like:
Translate [text to translate] to [target language] in layman's terms.
Translate [text to translate] to [target language] for a [grade 5] audience
Translate [text to translate] to [target language]. Use style transfer
to make the translated text suitable for a [target audience]
4. Account for Regional Differences
Some
words may have different meanings or connotations depending on the
region or country of the speaker. For instance, the English sentence
"I'm going to play football" could translate to "我要去踢足球 (Wǒ yào qù tī
zúqiú)" in Chinese. While this seems like a perfect translation, if the
speaker was American, the translation could be wrong. By saying
"football," an American speaker would likely be referring to the
rugby-style sport called American football instead of the football known
by the rest of the world.
Regular translation tools have no way
to account for this potential misinterpretation. ChatGPT, on the other
hand, can provide varying translations depending on the speaker's
origin.
We prompted ChatGPT to translate "I'm going to play
football" into Chinese. As expected, it produced "我要去踢足球 (Wǒ yào qù tī
zúqiú)." In Chinese, "zúqiú" means "football," which refers to soccer
rather than the rugby-style sport.
ChatGPT translation accounting for regional differences in meaning
We
repeated the translation prompt but added hints about the speaker's
origin and possible intent. ChatGPT changed the translation to "我要去踢橄榄球
(Wǒ yào qù tī gǎnlǎnqiú)," this time using "gǎnlǎnqiú" which is the
Chinese term for American football and better reflects the potential
intent of the speaker.
5. Use Summarized Translation
Sometimes,
you don't want to read the entirety of a text. You just want to
understand the message the author or speaker is trying to pass across.
ChatGPT is one of the few translation tools you can rely on for
situations like this. To get a summarized translation, ask ChatGPT to
provide a "summarized" or "condensed" translation of the target text.
Some prompts examples include:
Provide a descriptive but condensed translation of [text to translate] in Spanish.
Provide a Summarized translation of [text to translate] in French.
Provide a summarized translation of [text to translate] in English.
Translate this article into Dutch, but only include the key points.
6. Use a Fine-Tuned Instance of ChatGPT
Using
a fine-tuned instance of ChatGPT is one of the best ways to utilize
ChatGPT as a translation tool. It opens up almost endless possibilities
for translation using the AI chatbot. But how can you fine-tune ChatGPT
for translation?
You can do it in several ways. A key component
to fine-tuning ChatGPT for translation is laying out rules the chatbot
must follow when translating any text you provide. For instance, you can
fine-tune ChatGPT by providing a word-translation pair or a
text-translation pair. Here's an example below:
While trying to
translate a Pidgin text into English, we ran into some wrongly
translated words. Providing the word-translation pairs below made
ChatGPT update its translation of the words in subsequent translations.
Fine-tunning ChatGPT for translation tasks
You
can also make ChatGPT translations more accurate by providing several
large texts and their verified translations. You can then prompt ChatGPT
to deduce the right translation of words and phrases from the provided
samples and apply it when translating text involving a similar language
pair. While you can use significantly longer texts to fine-tune ChatGPT
translations, below is a short illustration of how it works using a
short paragraph.
Providing a parralel corpus of text for ChatGPT
We achieved improved translation with every prompt without taking any further steps.
Don't Rely Solely on Machine Translation
While
ChatGPT is an impressive translation tool, it's important to remember
that it is still a machine and may not always produce the best
translation. So don't rely solely on it, especially for important or
sensitive documents. Instead, try a combination of tools, and whenever
possible, consider using a professional translator to proofread to
ensure accuracy.
Source: makeuseof.com
Other resources: https://chatdico.com/
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