The quality of ChatGPT is better than many online translation tools, so now many people should be like me and use ChatGPT directly for translation instead of Google Translate or Bing Translate. As far as short sentences or articles are concerned, ChatGPT has translated very well, but it still has a bit of a machine translation feel. Sometimes when encountering longer articles, there may even be problems and unsatisfactory translations. This article will tell you about a super powerful Prompt. Send it to ChatGPT before translation, and you can easily get better translation results. There is really a big difference.
Using this prompt, you will be able to get better ChatGPT translation quality
Recently, I saw a netizen Cai Minxi on Facebook sharing a Prompt from “Baoyu @dotey”, which can greatly improve the quality of ChatGPT translation. He changed it to Traditional Chinese and added the concept of Chain of Density (CoD). In my actual measurement, it was indeed quite different. The Prompt is as follows:
你是一位精通台灣繁體中文的專業翻譯，曾參與《紐約時報》和《經濟學人》繁體中文版的翻譯工作，因此對於新聞和時事文章的翻譯有深入的理解。我希望你能幫我將以下英文新聞段落翻譯成繁體中文，風格與上述雜誌的繁體中文版本相似。
規則：
– 翻譯時要準確傳達新聞事實和背景。
– 保留特定的英文術語或名字，並在其前後加上空格，例如：”中 UN 文”。
– 分成兩次翻譯，並且打印每一次結果：
1. 根據新聞內容直譯，不要遺漏任何訊息
2. 根據第一次直譯的結果重新意譯，遵守原意的前提下讓內容更通俗易懂，符合台灣繁體中文的表達習慣
– 每輪翻譯後，都要重新比對英文原文，找到扭曲原意或者遺漏的內容，然後再補充到下一輪的翻譯當中。（Chain of Density 概念）
本條消息只需要回覆 OK，接下來的消息我將會給你發送完整內容，收到後請按照上面的規則打印兩次翻譯結果。
After sending this Prompt to ChatGPT, ChatGPT will only reply OK, and then you can paste the content you want to translate, and ChatGPT will give you two translation results, one is a literal translation, and the other is a free translation. I think this is quite good. It not only allows us to choose which translation result to use, but also compares the differences with each other, and sorts out the final version of the sentences that are missing or feel better translated:
First of all, the picture below is the result of GPT-4 translation without using any Prompt. A comparison of the three translations will be posted below. If you think the picture is too small to see clearly, you can scroll down to view:
Next, after giving Prompt, I got literal translation and free translation. I think the free translation part is much better than calling ChatGPT to translate directly:
English paragraph to be translated:
Over the weekend, Apple blamed several factors for reports of iPhone 15s running hot, pointing to problems with specific apps like Instagram and Uber, post-transfer background processing, and unspecified bugs in iOS 17. Today, the company released a new software update with patch notes saying that iOS 17.0.3 “addresses an issue that may cause iPhone to run warmer than expected.
ChatGPT direct translation:
Over the weekend, Apple reported several reasons for iPhone 15s overheating, pointing to issues with specific apps like Instagram and Uber, background processing after data transfer, and an unspecified bug in iOS 17. Today, the company is rolling out a new software update, and its patch notes state that iOS 17.0.3 “addresses an issue that may cause iPhone to run too hot.”
Prompt + literal translation:
Over the weekend, Apple responded to reports that the iPhone 15s was overheating, saying multiple factors could be blamed, including specific apps like Instagram and Uber, background processing after transfers, and an unspecified wormhole in iOS 17. Today, the company released a new software update, and the patch notes say iOS 17.0.3 “addresses an issue that may cause iPhones to run warmer than expected.”
Prompt + free translation:
Over the weekend, Apple gave an explanation for the iPhone 15s heating problem, which it believed was caused by specific apps such as Instagram, Uber, background operations after data transfer, and some unspecified issues with iOS 17. Today, Apple rolled out a new version of its software update, stating that iOS 17.0.3 has fixed an issue that made iPhones run hotter than expected.
I tested for a period of time and found that although the overall translation quality of the literal translation part is better than the direct translation using ChatGPT, some specialized terms may be translated randomly, such as the bug in the English paragraph above, which is translated into a wormhole. This is not the case with free translation. In most cases, the translation is very good. However, it is recommended to compare it with the original text after the translation.
I also tested Japanese and changed some key points of Prompt into Japanese translations, such as: “The New York Times” and “The Economist” became “NHK” and “Nihon Keizai Shimbun”, English news paragraphs -> Japanese news paragraphs, English terms -> Japanese terms, etc., but I feel that the results are not as good as English. Sometimes the result of directly calling ChatGPT translation is smoother, so if you want to use it to translate other languages, you may need to modify Prompt a little more.
Translating into English first and then into Traditional Chinese usually yields better results than translating directly.
Source: KOCPC Chinese