Something mentioned in class that caught my interest was the translation of idioms or Japanese sayings, especially those that seem to be random words thrown together if not for the historical context. For both of the following phrases, I had put it through Google Translate and DeepL. I wanted to do Google Translate, being one of the most common/easily accessible, along with the LLM AI of DeepL to compare the responses.
Phrase 1: 花鳥風月
Meaning: The Beauty of Nature
GT Translation: Flowers, birds, wind and moon OR Beauties of nature
DeepL Translation: Flowers, Birds, Wind and Moon
However, for DeepL, it does translate the idiom correctly when used in a sentence (though it clearly still gets some things wrong).
EX: 僕は花鳥風月が好きです。—> I love the beauty of nature.
Phrase 2: 聞くは一時の恥、聞かぬは一生の恥
This phrase doesn’t have a professional translation (that I could find), here is one of many possible translations: Better to ask and be embarrassed, than not ask and remain ignorant.
GT Translation: Asking is a moment’s shame; not asking is a lifetime’s shame.
DeepL Translation: It’s better to ask and be embarrassed for a moment than to remain ignorant and be embarrassed for a lifetime.
Here, the translations are not just word for word as the first idiom. There is more leeway given the nature of the second phrase being more sentence-like (+ diction, structure, etc.), which seemingly the AI’s are able to process more cleanly.
Avinash
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