The top 5 GPT translation advantages you need to know

What enables GPT to push machine translation into the next domain?

The main advantage of GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) translation over traditional machine translation lies in its use of deep learning algorithms and large-scale pre-trained data, which allows GPT to excel in understanding context, grasping linguistic nuances, and generating more fluent and natural translations.

1. Better understanding of document context

What is context understanding? Taking Chinese-English translation as an example: 'I didn’t see her face because of the mask.'

Without sufficient context understanding, machine translation may miss contextual details such as what kind of mask 'the mask' refers to and why it is being worn, merely translating the surface meaning.

Models like GPT can more reasonably determine that 'mask' here refers to a face-covering mask used to prevent virus transmission, rather than a theatrical or masquerade mask, by considering the current social context (such as the prevalence of masks during a pandemic) and clues within the sentence. This results in a more precise and contextually appropriate translation.

GPT's superior contextual understanding is reflected in its ability to more accurately capture subtle nuances in language, including tone, metaphors, puns, and idioms, and to provide correct semantic interpretation and translation based on these. Especially for documents where context is closely related, understanding the relationships between different parts of the document, including long-distance dependencies, can provide more accurate translations.

2. Better natural language recognition and generation capabilities

When generating text, GPT can better align with human language habits, producing translations that are more fluent and natural, unlike some traditional machine translations that may be stiff or not conform to the expression habits of the target language.

For example, translating this sentence: 'Although he was tired after working long hours, he still decided to go to the gym, which his doctor had advised him to do for improving his health.'

Google translates as: 'Although he was tired after working for a long time, he still decided to go to the gym, which was recommended by the doctor to improve his health.'

GPT translates as: 'Despite feeling tired after working for a long time, he still decided to go to the gym, which was a suggestion from his doctor to improve his health.'.

It is evident that when it comes to entire documents, the naturalness of the translated sentences is an important criterion for evaluating translation quality, and GPT performs much better than machine translation in this regard.

3. Reduce translation bias

Due to GPT's more extensive and diverse training data, it can reduce biases that may exist in some traditional machine translation systems.

For example, when translating gender-neutral job titles, some machine translations may default to using words of a specific gender, whereas GPT can handle this issue more objectively.

4. Adaptability to Non-standard Expressions

GPT is better able to understand and translate non-standard expressions, idioms, and even internet slang because it has been exposed to more diverse language expressions during pre-training.

For example, when translating sentences containing internet slang, GPT can more accurately grasp their semantics and provide an appropriate translation.

5. GPT's Learning Ability

What is most noteworthy is that GPT is continuously learning and evolving. Even with its currently demonstrated capabilities, GPT has advantages over machine translation.