I've been working on a language-learning app, and gpt-4 has made things doable that didn't seem to be doable without it. For example, translating to lesser known languages like Cree. Online you can find a dictionary of words, or phrases, but I wasn't able to find a translator for arbitrary statements. It's not listed on google translate, nor yandex, et al. But, it's possible with gpt.

My strategy in automated translation is to translate, and then translate back to English. That way we can be fairly sure the translation is accurate. Of course if this app "has wings" I would open source the translations to allow corrections, and/or hire native translators for languages I don't speak (which is the vast majority of languages).

Last tip is that for me, I was able to make a pretty good automated system for this. What I did was spell out a monstrosity of a system-prompt which ensures a few things. One, it will always give me the most descriptive romanization for non-ASCII languages. Two, it will give me output that is essentially .csv data. Three, if it encounters a made up language like Pirate, it will try (and do a pretty good job). The rest is just parsing my final translation file to find prompt/language pairs which aren't saved yet and piping that to the monstrous prompt which queries for translations.

Then you can run a separate program for validation. See if it passes my game of telephone test.

This way I and others could learn common phrases in languages which are hard to otherwise access. It even works for dead languages/dialects/character-voices, etc. For me, it's pretty amazing actually. Please note that I never said perfect. But it's pretty damn close actually.

All in all this workflow allows what would have been unimaginable even two years ago.

In doing tests today I found it interesting/useful to note how gpt-4 is "thinking" about translating the word "settings". Here is its thoughts. This is not the exact system prompt I'm using for my app.

  system_prompt = "You are an expert in translating lesser-known languages. When translating you will include both the native writing system, and the romanization into the latin alphabet. When you romanize text you always include any accents or pronunciation marks."

  user_prompt = "Translate the following into Cree. [Hello, goodbye, settings]"

  # Output
  In Cree language, your words will be translated into:

  1. Hello - ᑌᔭᔭᑎ, romanized as "Tānsi"
  2. Goodbye - ᐊᔭᙱᐂᒥᑎ, romanized as "Ayāwāw"

  "Settings" is a bit more complex, because it implies technological context that doesn't necessarily have a direct equivalent in Cree. However, a possible option is:

  3. Settings - ᓂᐹᕗᓂᑕᐚᓇᐠ, romanized as "Nipāvunitawānāk", which might refer to "adjustments".