7 ms·

Native German speaker here. My partner is a native English speaker and I was about to recommend this to her. However, it looks like a lot of this is auto gener

Native German speaker here. My partner is a native English speaker and I was about to recommend this to her. However, it looks like a lot of this is auto generated/translated, making it sound unnatural or sometimes just wrong. For example: I looked at this example story [1] and the practice question is slightly bad grammar. It should be "Wer ging im Wald spazieren?", not "Wer ging spazieren im Wald?". Or: "Sie lachten und hatten eine gute Zeit [...]" --> This seems like a bad translation of "had a good time", which doesn't translate directly to German like this. Would definitely not recommend this overall. [1] https://webbu.app/l/german/story/ein-unerwarteter-spaziergang-im-wald https://webbu.app/l/german/story/ein-unerwarteter-spaziergan...

clbrmbr 3y ago
I think this can be solved through asking the LLM to improve the output itself. I asked GPT-4 to "provide more idiomatic and grammatically correct versions. Consider whether each phrase sounds like German," and got the following output: Wer ging im Wald spazieren? Max war sehr dankbar für Lisas Hilfe und lud sie zum Eisessen ein. Sie gingen zu einer nahegelegenen Eisdiele und verbrachten den restlichen Tag zusammen. Sie lachten und hatten eine schöne Zeit, als ob sie sich schon lange gekannt hätten. @cloogsicer: is "eine schöne Zeit" more acceptable? The rest?
- clbrmbr 3y ago
  I tried the first paragraph, too. Seems to have made several idiomatic improvements: Es war ein sonniger Tag im Wald und ein Mädchen namens Lisa ging spazieren. Sie hörte plötzlich ein Geräusch und drehte sich um. Sie sah einen Jungen namens Max, der in Schwierigkeiten war. Er hatte sich verlaufen und wusste nicht, wie er zurück zum Parkplatz kommen sollte. Lisa entschied sich, ihm zu helfen und sie begannen gemeinsam den Weg zurück zu suchen. --> Es war ein sonniger Tag im Wald, und ein Mädchen namens Lisa ging spazieren. Plötzlich hörte sie ein Geräusch und drehte sich um. Sie sah einen Jungen namens Max, der in Schwierigkeiten steckte. Er hatte sich verirrt und wusste nicht, wie er zum Parkplatz zurückkommen sollte. Lisa beschloss, ihm zu helfen, und gemeinsam suchten sie den Weg zurück.
  - crucialfelix 3y ago
    I learned more from comparing these two paragraphs than from reading the original. Little things like where the comma goes, sich verlaufen vs sich verirren. Ich soll mehr mit le Chat auf deutsch quatschen.
- thanatropism 3y ago
  This can also be solved picking a copy of Goethe's Faust in German. It's an entertaining story.
- yorwba 3y ago
  I'd use „hatten viel Spaß zusammen“ instead of „schöne Zeit”.
thomasahle 3y ago
Seems silly to translate short stories into German, rather than just using German short stories. Even if translation got incredibly good, the "real" German stories would have the extra benefit of teaching you about the culture. On that note, do you have a recommendation for a collection of actual German short stories?
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Der Struwwelpeter
  - verst 3y ago
    Excellent recommendation. I always use that book to explain to people how I grew up very differently from folks in the US (where I now live). English: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24571 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24571 German: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24571/24571-h/24571-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24571/24571-h/24571-h.htm
    - guenthert 3y ago
      My sarcasm detector is failing me. Mid 19th century Germany (around the time the Struwwelpeter was written, that would have been the Deutscher Bund, when nationalism was seen as progressive) is culturally, sociologically more different from late 20th century Germany then late 20th century Germany from late 20th century USA methinks.
      - yorwba 3y ago
        The Struwwelpeter continues to be part of German culture.
      - verst 3y ago
        German parenting is very different from American parenting. Struwwelpeter is an extreme, but it does capture the essence of the tough love approach, emphasis on following rules (or suffer the consequences) etc Certain elements of German culture did not just develop in the last 150-200 years :)
wizzwizz4 3y ago
TornadoGuard: https://xkcd.com/937/ https://xkcd.com/937/
fersarr 3y ago
Thanks for the feedback! I'm going to be working on improving this so hopefully It will be up to your standards very soon. I do have some ideas to check and the comments from today helped a lot. Also, I'll ask my native friends for some help.
quitit 3y ago
Paired with the autogenerated questions which require upgrading to check. One might as well use Duolingo, they have an interactive story feature which I feel does a better job than this (despite how poor I believe duolingo is for learning a language.)
FearNotDaniel 3y ago
Thanks for confirming my gut response, that something felt "off" about the language here. As a German learner (B1-B2ish) I had a sense something was off-key, then had a suspicion machine translation was involved when OP offered to make an Arabic version very quickly for another commenter. My German-speaking friends can always tell when I get lazy and run a text message through DeepL instead of writing it myself in German. Please, don't ever think machine translation is a good basis for a language-learning app!

clbrmbr 3y ago

I think this can be solved through asking the LLM to improve the output itself. I asked GPT-4 to "provide more idiomatic and grammatically correct versions. Consider whether each phrase sounds like German," and got the following output: Wer ging im Wald spazieren? Max war sehr dankbar für Lisas Hilfe und lud sie zum Eisessen ein. Sie gingen zu einer nahegelegenen Eisdiele und verbrachten den restlichen Tag zusammen. Sie lachten und hatten eine schöne Zeit, als ob sie sich schon lange gekannt hätten. @cloogsicer: is "eine schöne Zeit" more acceptable? The rest?

clbrmbr 3y ago
I tried the first paragraph, too. Seems to have made several idiomatic improvements: Es war ein sonniger Tag im Wald und ein Mädchen namens Lisa ging spazieren. Sie hörte plötzlich ein Geräusch und drehte sich um. Sie sah einen Jungen namens Max, der in Schwierigkeiten war. Er hatte sich verlaufen und wusste nicht, wie er zurück zum Parkplatz kommen sollte. Lisa entschied sich, ihm zu helfen und sie begannen gemeinsam den Weg zurück zu suchen. --> Es war ein sonniger Tag im Wald, und ein Mädchen namens Lisa ging spazieren. Plötzlich hörte sie ein Geräusch und drehte sich um. Sie sah einen Jungen namens Max, der in Schwierigkeiten steckte. Er hatte sich verirrt und wusste nicht, wie er zum Parkplatz zurückkommen sollte. Lisa beschloss, ihm zu helfen, und gemeinsam suchten sie den Weg zurück.
- crucialfelix 3y ago
  I learned more from comparing these two paragraphs than from reading the original. Little things like where the comma goes, sich verlaufen vs sich verirren. Ich soll mehr mit le Chat auf deutsch quatschen.
thanatropism 3y ago
This can also be solved picking a copy of Goethe's Faust in German. It's an entertaining story.
yorwba 3y ago
I'd use „hatten viel Spaß zusammen“ instead of „schöne Zeit”.

thomasahle 3y ago

Seems silly to translate short stories into German, rather than just using German short stories. Even if translation got incredibly good, the "real" German stories would have the extra benefit of teaching you about the culture. On that note, do you have a recommendation for a collection of actual German short stories?

WalterBright 3y ago
Der Struwwelpeter
- verst 3y ago
  Excellent recommendation. I always use that book to explain to people how I grew up very differently from folks in the US (where I now live). English: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24571 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24571 German: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24571/24571-h/24571-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24571/24571-h/24571-h.htm
  - guenthert 3y ago
    My sarcasm detector is failing me. Mid 19th century Germany (around the time the Struwwelpeter was written, that would have been the Deutscher Bund, when nationalism was seen as progressive) is culturally, sociologically more different from late 20th century Germany then late 20th century Germany from late 20th century USA methinks.
    - yorwba 3y ago
      The Struwwelpeter continues to be part of German culture.
    - verst 3y ago
      German parenting is very different from American parenting. Struwwelpeter is an extreme, but it does capture the essence of the tough love approach, emphasis on following rules (or suffer the consequences) etc Certain elements of German culture did not just develop in the last 150-200 years :)

wizzwizz4 3y ago

TornadoGuard: https://xkcd.com/937/ https://xkcd.com/937/

fersarr 3y ago

Thanks for the feedback! I'm going to be working on improving this so hopefully It will be up to your standards very soon. I do have some ideas to check and the comments from today helped a lot. Also, I'll ask my native friends for some help.

quitit 3y ago

Paired with the autogenerated questions which require upgrading to check. One might as well use Duolingo, they have an interactive story feature which I feel does a better job than this (despite how poor I believe duolingo is for learning a language.)

FearNotDaniel 3y ago

Thanks for confirming my gut response, that something felt "off" about the language here. As a German learner (B1-B2ish) I had a sense something was off-key, then had a suspicion machine translation was involved when OP offered to make an Arabic version very quickly for another commenter. My German-speaking friends can always tell when I get lazy and run a text message through DeepL instead of writing it myself in German. Please, don't ever think machine translation is a good basis for a language-learning app!