Google Translate vs. ChatGPT: Which One Is the Best Language Translator?

pcmag.com:

With Google Translate, converting any sentence to over 100 languages is a snap, but anyone who uses it regularly knows there's room for improvement.

In theory, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT should usher in the next era of language translation. They consume vast volumes of text-based training data, plus real-time feedback from millions of users around the world, and quickly learn how to "speak" a wide range of languages with coherent, human-like sentences.

But we've heard the "ChatGPT is going to replace everything" refrain before, only to find it's often inaccurate—the worst-case scenario for translation. "We currently don't have empirical results supporting claims of chatty LLMs working better for translation," says Nazneen Rajani, research lead at Hugging Face(Opens in a new window), maker of AI-based Hugging Chat.

So, we decided to put ChatGPT to the test. Does it have the chops to replace Google Translate as the go-to translation service for travel, work, cross-border romance, and any other language needs? And how does it compare to its sister chatbots, Microsoft Bing, and Google Bard?

We asked bilingual speakers of seven languages to do a blind test.  All of them grew up speaking non-English languages, and now live in the US and/or work for American companies.

Given a paragraph in English, they ranked the translated version for their language by Google Translate, ChatGPT, and Microsoft Bing. Once they completed the exercise, we revealed which service produced each one.

Languages Tested: Polish, French, Korean, Spanish, Arabic, Tagalog, Amharic

Translation Services: Google Translate, Google Bard, ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing

This is by no means a comprehensive study. "Please consider that small blind tests