In the past, I put a lot of effort into making large language models translate better, trying various methods. Initially, I used literal translation followed by interpretive translation, later upgrading to literal translation, reflection, and then interpretive translation. The results improved, but the process became increasingly complex.

Now that models are becoming smarter, I feel it's unnecessary to make things so complicated. Instead, I want to try a "back to basics" approach, finding a simpler and more efficient prompt method.

I've noticed that translation results sometimes seem stiff because the task itself is defined as "translation." Since it's "translation," the model dutifully follows the literal meaning, trying to preserve the original format and structure, which can easily result in a straightforward and awkward output.

This reminds me of when I was learning English, and the teacher asked us to translate English into Chinese. We would usually diligently follow the English words and sentence structures. But if the teacher said "rewrite in Chinese" instead of "translate," it felt much freer – as long as we grasped the meaning of the English, we could express it naturally in Chinese, and the result was much better.

So, recently, I tried asking the large language model not to rigidly "translate" in translation tasks, but to "rewrite" in the target language. The results were noticeably different! The translation was no longer constrained by the grammar of the original text, but was expressed in a more natural and fluent way.

For example, yesterday OpenAI released the "Stargate" announcement, and the last sentence was:

"We want to connect with firms across the built data center infrastructure landscape, from power and land to construction to equipment, and everything in between."

If we were to literally "translate" it, it might be: "我们希望与整个数据中心基础设施领域的企业建立联系，从电力和土地到建设再到设备，以及这其中的所有环节。" (We hope to connect with companies across the entire data center infrastructure landscape, from power and land to construction to equipment, and everything in between.)

But if we "rewrite in Chinese," it would be much smoother: "我们希望跟数据中心基础设施相关的企业合作，涵盖电力、土地、建筑、设备等方方面面." (We hope to cooperate with companies related to data center infrastructure, covering all aspects such as power, land, construction, and equipment.)

So how do you do it? The prompt is actually super simple:

"请尊重原意，保持原有格式不变，用简体中文重写下面的内容：" (Please respect the original meaning, maintain the original format, and rewrite the following content in Simplified Chinese:)
Or the English version:
"Please respect the original meaning, maintain the original format, and rewrite the following content in Simplified Chinese:"

The same applies to translating other languages; just change the target language in the prompt!

@宝玉