2 pointsby gethly3 days ago4 comments
  • solardev3 days ago
    Use chatgpt or deepl. They're much better than Google Translate, especially if you specify the context.
    • PaulHoule3 days ago
      Many chatbots are good at this, including Microsoft Copilot and they can answer questions about languages too if you want to understand the structure, such as "which characters mean 'new-type' in 国家新型都市化計画?"

      Personally I'm interested in Japanese and Chinese culture and I frequently find Japanese speakers engage with my photos on Bluesky so I frequently use it to read responses and write replies where: (1) I can specify tone and context, and then (2) I use a different chatbot to translate my reply back to English to check that it translates properly.

    • gethly3 days ago
      I thought about that but I guess i defaulted to service dedicated to translating that i am used to. If the ML is so good with these, I wonder why google translate(or microsoft and others) have not implemented them into their existing services...
      • solardeva day ago
        I think Google Translate has implemented some similar ML too, but you can't really prompt it and specify context the way you can with a chatbot.

        I'll usually translate it with chatgpt and then run the result backward through Google Translate in order to double check. It's been excellent every time.

  • 16594470912 days ago
    TL;DR There are services that specialize in translating small phrases / paragraphs. Search tattoo translator services (but vet properly, there are fake ones too)

    I found a few services while looking for a proper translator to turn a small phrase into Old Latin. I can't remember the services now (it was long ago) but there are professional translators, historians and college professors who moonlight on these sites doing small translations for a small fee. Some offer bulk translations of small phrases. One of the translators I got was a professor in classical text/literature/language (can't remember exactly) and another was some professor of ancient/classical history. The translations came back similar but worded a bit different because there was no way to do a 1 to 1 translation and they provided options for sightly different variants.

  • isntThatSth3 days ago
    > It makes no sense to bother individual translators with such a miniscule job

    You're not bothering them if you're paying for the job. On your part, all you need to do is to set up a web-based interface that makes it easy and fast for them to log in and add the translations.

  • isntThatSth3 days ago
    Machine-created translations are bad. They've become better over time, but they're still bad. If you've ever tried having your native language butchered in the way that machine-created translations butcher my native language on the daily, you'd understand why. I suspect a lot of the push for machine translations comes from monolingual developers in Silicon Valley.
    • solardeva day ago
      Machine translations aren't all made equal though. The LLM ones, especially ChatGPT, are many times better than older systems. They are better writers and translators (of major common languages) than most humans I know... by far.
    • jotjotzzz3 days ago
      I think it does it reasonably well for some major languages. What languages are you referring to here?
      • stevekemp2 days ago
        Finnish is a good example of a language where online translations tend to be .. subpar.