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Comment by stingraycharles | Hacker News Reader

I find that meta’s translations are very poor compared to others, at least for relatively obscure languages, which I figured was relevant considering the article.

Google Translate is a good default, but LLMs are really good at translations, as they’re better capable at understanding context and providing culturally appropriate translations.

(I live in Cambodia where they speak Khmer)

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Hello from Siem Reap, Cambodia! Awesome to see a fellow tech enthusiast from Cambodia.

I actually found Facebook’s translations pretty good (better than Google Translate for things longer than a sentence). From my understanding of Khmer, Khmer is a bit more verbose and context dependent, hence LLMs in Khmer would be a big help understand those nuances.

In the inverse case (LLMs generating khmer from English) I heard from locals that it sounds formal and “robotic” which I found quite interesting.

Kagi Translate is fantastic. Multilingual support is honestly one of the best things about LLMs, imo.

So, LLMs are noticeably better in Khmer than Google Translate? I wonder why Google Translate doesn't use Gemini under-the-hood. Perhaps it's more prone to hallucinations.

I'm interested in find some thorough testing of translations on different LLMs vs Translation APIs.

There's a dropdown on Google Translate that lets you choose "Advanced" mode or "Classic" mode. Advanced mode uses Gemini but it's only available for select languages.

It's not even good for Chinese

*they're

(Sorry I had to)

I could have sworn I edited it! I did notice myself as well, but thanks for the correction.

*ពួកគេគឺជា

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