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Comment by names_are_hard | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a book editor or translator, just a guy with a reasonable familiarity with rabbinic literature in its original language. I spent some time reading the translation of Tzemach David, and I can say the following: it's legible to me but the AI is clearly lacking a style guide. It's inconsistent about what it chooses to translate and what it chooses to transliterate, and when it transliterates, it's inconsistent in how it does so. Eg "Rosh mesivta" vs "metivta" vs "exilarch". The AI is drawing on a hodge-podge of training materials with diverse audiences and no clear audience of its own.

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Can you email me with more info? It is likely the distinctions you noted are from the source. There is a glossary maintained that keeps specific words or phrases consistent. But slightly different phrases can resolve in inconsistent ways.

The problem is not the AI, but rather a weakness in the design. In other words, a bug. Or a regression and we call them today. It is fixable.

I think that I might not have been clear enough. Of course Rosh mesivta and exilarch differ in the source, but I don't think a human translator would choose to translate one title and not the other. In circles where people use the word exilarch I am almost 100% positive no one would say Rosh mesivta, and the kind of folks who use Rosh mesivta in conversation would say Reish Galusa, not exilarch.

I can't imagine that metivta and mesivta are not both transliterations of the word מתיבתא.

You need to identify the target audience and stick to their language. Are you translating for a general lay audience? An academic audience? Contemporary religious Jews? If the latter, is it a yeshivish audience or a wider group? How much familiarity with Hebrew is expected from the reader?

Thank you. Your comments are very helpful. I am working on updating the translation agents and fixing the issue in the existing works.

If you'd like, you can contact me privately and I will let you know when the updates are published. Or just check the site occasionally for updates.

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