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Comment by A_D_E_P_T | Hacker News Reader

> DeepL’s models are trained on the highest-quality linguistic data, with an unwavering focus on excellence. Combining world-class AI with the expertise of thousands of hand-picked language specialists who “tutor” the model, DeepL consistently provides best-in-class translation.

> In fact, recent blind tests show that language experts routinely prefer DeepL's translations. According to the data, DeepL’s translation is preferred: 1.3x more often than Google Translate, 1.7x more often than ChatGPT-4, 2.3x more often than Microsoft

There's no way that's true, because GPT-4 is vastly superior to Google Translate in general -- so if Google Translate is "preferred by experts" over GPT-4, to that extent, this would imply that the test they're using is somehow contrived or unrepresentative of the average use case.

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It’s true. DeepL is based in part on the linguee data, which has long been the highest quality real world language use database. It excels at not translating literally, but actual meaning. While not being impaired by also having to be a general chat model with a conservative system prompt and fine tuning (GPT4)

> GPT-4 is vastly superior to Google Translate in general

You mean in translation? It might depend on the chosen language pair but for my use cases DeepL > Google Translate > ChatGPT4

Yeah, in translation.

In English-German translation, Google Translate will make at least 1-2 errors per document, and it's sometimes worse than that. GPT-4 generally produces error-free documents.

In English-Japanese translation, Google Translate's results are very poor, and GPT-4, though not perfect, is much better across the board.

Another thing is that Google Translate only produces word-for-word translations. GPT-4 can be told to modulate its results, like "translate this in an informal, casual voice," or "translate this in sparse and exact language for a corporate legal memo." Or even, "translate this into [specific dialect]."

Averaged paired preference is not necessarily transitive.

Presumably Google have not updated their Translate product to use the latest LLM technology - I gave it some Russian text and it produced a very poor translation that was literal garbage in parts. When I fed the same text to Perplexity I got an excellent translation.

While it's very good, and I do use Linguee frequently, by being a LLM it also confabulates. Invent a word in the source language, and it will try very hard to invent a translated word by using parts of the source. Use it but don't blindly trust it.

Yeah exactly, and surely it would also vary depending on the languages being translated from/to. I don't see how you can make claims like that and not link to the studies backing them up, this is so disingenuous.

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