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Comment by rikafurude21 | Hacker News Reader

I had to implement multilingual UI for my app recently and the best method I found was using an LLM API inside a script which just runs on build and anytime a new text field gets added it gets the translations and stores it in a JSON where the right strings are picked based on system language or user settings. The annoying part was adjusting the entire UI to the new 'dynamic' string selection functionality but other than that, the tokens I had generated only cost maybe a dollar. I suggest the author looks into that, because waiting for user submissions could take some time

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An LLM isn’t going to provide a high quality translation because it doesn’t understand the context of what the string means in the UI, cultural conventions/writing styles, etc. You might as well run every string through Google Translate. Localization isn’t just a 1-to-1 translation of the text - it requires tailoring for each language that a human translator can do best.

Did you just step out of a time machine from 10 years ago? Translation is considered a fully solved problem due to LLMs. If you're bilingual you can find out for yourself, LLMs are able to parse meaning and transfer writing styles perfectly well. You're able to prompt it with the context of what its translating and it understands that it has to return short meaningful text. I know that it might make mistakes, thats obvious, but considering the post we're replying to, an open source developer with a 0 dollar budget wont be able to hire human translators.

translation is absolutely not “100% solved” because LLMs exist. such a take is underplaying so much cultural and emotional connection it’s laughable. contempible even. if you are an OSS dev and have no money, you can find another OSS dev to help you translate instead of using offensive AI slop.

How much "cultural and emotional connection" do you think it takes to translate a "back" button into all the languages that your users speak? Do you understand that translating software UI is not a creative endeavor, its a simple logistical problem that you solve by using the best tools at hand? Why would doing this be "contempible"? This isnt like translating Dostoevsky into english, and I certainly would prefer a human do that task instead of an LLM. Also, how would you be able to tell that the text fields youre reading in your software were written using "offensive AI slop"? Your ideological priors are obviously blinding you to see and understand the value of the tool at hand, and I recommend you try to engage with them in an open minded way. I have the same recommendation to you as the previous reply, if youre bilingual, look at how well LLMs write translations for any text you provide them. It speaks for itself.

# Translate this string table into <language>. I've included screenshots of the application in your context. When appropriate, search the web for translation guides / screenshots of similar applications and see what words they used for analogous UI elements.

Good idea, translating a whole table of related UI fields in one request would definitely give the LLM more context to work with and I assume would lead to better results.

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