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In my limited experience, LLMs can have issues with translation tone — but these issues are pretty easily fixed with good prompting.

I want to believe there will be even more translators in the future. I really want to believe it.


alganet
> easily fixed with good prompting

Can you give us an example of a typical translation question and the "good prompting" required to make the LLM consider tone?

simonw
There was a great thread about that here four months ago: https://www.hackerneue.com/item?id=42894215#42897856
alganet
Good, but not exactly what I expected for "easily fixed".

It includes a lot of steps and constant human evaluation between them, which implies that decisions about tone are ultimately made by whoever is prompting the LLM, not the LLMs themselves.

> "If they are generally in the style I want..."

> "choosing the sentences and paragraphs I like most from each..."

> "I also make my own adjustments to the translation as I see fit..."

> "I don’t adopt most of the LLM’s suggestions..."

> "I check it paragraph by paragraph..."

It seems like a great workflow to speed up the work of an already experienced translator, but far from being usable by a layman due to the several steps requiring specialized human supervision.

Consider the scenario presented by the blog post regarding bluntness/politeness and cultural sensitivities. Would anyone be able to use this workflow without knowing that beforehand? If you think about it, it could make the tone even worse.

nottorp
> It seems like a great workflow to speed up the work of an already experienced translator, but far from being usable by a layman due to the several steps requiring specialized human supervision.

Just like programming. And anything else "AI" assisted.

Helps experts type less.

alganet
Most of my time as a programmer is not spent typing.

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