Machine translations of English to Czech have proven disappointing, not that this isn't a problem with other language pairs.
Even though Czech speakers depend upon DeepL and (very few) other translation services, they can judge the quality of machine translation. However, isn't it true that, for the most part, once meaning has become clear with the aid of the Czech rendered, albeit not perfect, that is enough? The meaning-maker can and arguably does move on once that goal is reached, and then discards and proceeds with life beyond the source and translated texts.
If the purpose on the other hand is not just expedient meaning-making but accuracy of expression to be compared favorably with the original (that is, the source), and that translation will be shared (e.g., published) with a critical and sensitive audience of whatever age, background, etc., human intervention is required--perhaps mandatory. Authors would no doubt demand the best translations of their work, wouldn't they? Don't they?
AI and machine translations, it is said, have not been able to replicate the fully human side of communication. Implementations fail at the requisite interpretative expertise of qualified language professionals.
Recently, DeepL failed to translate to translate a children's story properly from the original English. (You would think that this would be a straight-forward, simple and correctly executed task.) Two problems Czech proofreaders pointed out: One, the Czech translation followed the sentence structure of the English; therefore not authentic as Czech is spoken/used. Two, it failed to nest the story in "the „colours" of the native language intended for a children's book."
(In another post here, literature's challenge to AI to reach or match the original composition has been pointed out by professional translators in The Netherlands and elsewhere.)
This then becomes the next question: Can one prompt a better-than-average AI service to do its best to achieve what basic translation fails to achieve per the native speaker? if, that is, one can articulate what it is that the service needs to focus on? Or in the words of one children's book author, "are we close to somehow matching human creativity?"
Now along comes ChatGPT with this prompt.
How can I prompt you to translate something from one language to another and keep what the novelist, for example, crafted? That is, I assume literature is harder to translate than, say, a business letter or legal contract where literal meaning is paramount. A novel, for example, will have allusions, well-turned phrases, and so on.
[begin response]]
You’re exactly right: literary translation is a *different task* from informational translation. The key is to prompt for **interpretive fidelity** rather than **lexical fidelity**.
Below is a practical way to think about prompting, followed by concrete prompt templates you can reuse.
---
## 1. What you’re really asking for
A good literary translation tries to preserve several layers at once:
1. **Meaning** (what happens, what is said)
2. **Voice** (tone, register, narrator’s personality)
3. **Effect** (what the passage does to the reader)
4. **Craft choices** (rhythm, imagery, metaphor, ambiguity)
5. **Cultural signals** (allusions, idioms, social cues)
A literal translation prioritizes #1.
A literary translation tries to balance all five.
Your prompt should *explicitly say* that this is the goal.
---
## 2. The single most important instruction
> **Tell me to act as a literary translator, not a literal one.**
That one sentence changes everything.
Bad prompt:
> “Translate this from Spanish to English.”
Much better:
> “Translate this as literary prose, preserving voice, imagery, and emotional effect rather than word-for-word accuracy.”
---
## 3. A strong general-purpose literary translation prompt
You can reuse this almost verbatim:
> **Prompt**
>
> “Translate the following text from **[Language A]** into **[Language B]** as a *literary translation*.
>
> Priorities:
>
> * Preserve the author’s voice, tone, and rhythm
> * Recreate imagery and metaphor naturally in the target language
> * Favor equivalent expressions over literal phrasing
> * Maintain ambiguity and subtext where present
>
> Avoid stiff or overly literal language. The result should read like an original literary work in **[Language B]**.”
This tells me:
* *What kind* of translation you want
* *What to sacrifice* if tradeoffs are necessary
---
## 4. When you want even more control
### A. Ask for register and style matching
> “The original is understated, ironic, and slightly archaic. Reflect that in the translation.”
or
> “The prose is spare and rhythmic, in the style of early Hemingway.”
This helps preserve *feel*, not just content.
---
### B. Ask me to explain difficult choices (optional)
This is extremely useful for literary work:
> “After the translation, briefly explain any major interpretive choices or places where a literal translation was avoided.”
This keeps you in control as an editor or adaptor.
---
### C. Ask for multiple variants (power move)
Professional translators do this.
> “Provide two translations:
>
> 1. A close literary translation
> 2. A freer, more idiomatic version
> Briefly note the differences.”
This lets you choose phrasing the way a novelist would.
---
## 5. Handling allusions, wordplay, and untranslatables
You can explicitly instruct how to treat them:
> “If the text contains wordplay or cultural references that don’t transfer cleanly, adapt them creatively rather than explaining them.”
—or—
> “Preserve the original reference even if it feels foreign; do not domesticate it.”
Those are *opposite* philosophies, and translators debate them endlessly. Your prompt decides.
---
## 6. If the author matters
If the text is clearly in dialogue with a known tradition or author:
> “Translate this as if the author were writing originally in **[target language]**, but without modernizing the voice.”
or
> “This is 19th-century prose; avoid contemporary idioms.”
---
## 7. A minimal but effective version
If you want something short you can type quickly:
> “Translate this literarily, not literally—preserve voice, imagery, and emotional effect.”
That alone already works surprisingly well.
---
## 8. One honest limitation (important)
Even the best literary translation is **an interpretation**. There is no neutral or “correct” version—only defensible choices. The more guidance you give about tone, era, and priorities, the closer the result will be to what *you* value in the original.
If you like, you can paste a short literary passage (even a paragraph), and I can:
* show how different prompts change the outcome, or
* translate it and annotate the craft decisions line by line.
That’s often the most illuminating way to see this in action.
[end response]
Given this comprehensive response and guidance, and had the children's story author and colleagues alluded to above known and used this, would the machine translation have (almost) met the experts assessment for a final copy?
That is the next project, which will still (opinion!) require competent language users to sign off on final versions.
Here is the agenda for the next developments in inter-linear translation conversion tools.
