Automatic translation has been considerably improved since the first version of this book was published in 2015. It said: “Automatic translation, also known as machine translation, often works rather well when translating simple prose between languages that are structurally more or less similar, such as French and Italian or English and German. Structural differences cause considerable problems, e.g. in translating from European languages to Korean—or from most European languages to Finnish or vice versa.” There has been advance in language technology, including Large Language Models (LLMs) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems.
Finnish word forms and compound words cause problems when translating from Finnish to other languages. Words need to be analyzed to recognize inflectional and derivative suffixes. A word form often has several different interpretations as mentioned in section Analyzing a word. The choice should depend on the context, and it may require understanding the content. Generally, modern AI systems use the context to decide the most plausible interpretation.
Let us see what happens if we submit the sample sentence analyzed earlier in this book to different translation programs.
| Finnish text | Translator | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| Jos haluat, että olemme yhteydessä sinuun, kirjoita puhelinnumerosi tähän. | Google Translate | If you would like us to contact you, please enter your phone number here. |
| Bing | If you want us to contact you, please write your phone number here. | |
| ChatGPT | If you want us to contact you, please write your phone number here. | |
| Grok | If you want us to contact you, please write your phone number here. | |
| Claude | If you want us to contact you, write your phone number here. |
The translations are understandable and rather similar. The long compound word with a possessive suffix, puhelinnumerosi, has been handled adequately. There is some variation in how haluat has been translated and in translating the imperative form kirjoita.
The following table shows translations of the first few sentences in the novel Täällä Pohjantähden alla (by Väinö Linna in 1959–1962).
| Finnish text | Translator | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| Alussa olivat suo, kuokka – ja Jussi. Suo oli autio, keskeltä melkein puuton neva, jonka veden vaivaamasta kamarasta nousi vain jokin kitukasvuinen käkkyrämänty, vahvakaarnainen ja tasalatvainen pieni vanhus. Jussi liikkui suolla, pysähdellen, katsellen, tarkkaillen ja arvioiden. | Google Translate | In the beginning there was a swamp, a hoe – and Jussi. The swamp was deserted, with an almost treeless lake in the middle, from whose water-stricken shell only a stunted pine, a small old man with a thick bark and a flat top, rose. Jussi moved around the swamp, stopping, looking, observing and assessing. |
| Bing | In the beginning, there were the swamp, the hoe – and Jussi. The swamp was desolate, almost treeless in the middle, an area troubled by water, from which only a stunted, gnarled pine rose up, a small old man with thick bark and a flat crown. Jussi moved through the swamp, pausing, looking, observing, and assessing. | |
| ChatGPT | In the beginning, there was the swamp, the hoe – and Jussi. The swamp was deserted, a nearly treeless bog in the middle, from whose waterlogged earth only a stunted, crooked pine tree grew, with thick bark and a flat top, a small elder. Jussi moved through the swamp, stopping, watching, observing, and assessing. | |
| Grok | In the beginning, there were the swamp, the hoe, and Jussi. The swamp was desolate, nearly treeless in the middle, a waterlogged expanse from which only a stunted, gnarled pine rose, a small old man with thick bark and a flat crown. Jussi moved through the swamp, pausing, looking, observing, and assessing. | |
| Claude | In the beginning were the bog, the hoe – and Jussi. The bog was desolate, a nearly treeless fen in the middle, from whose water-troubled chamber rose only some stunted, gnarled pine, a thick-barked and flat-topped little old one. Jussi moved about the bog, stopping, looking, observing and evaluating. |
I asked Claude just to translate the text, but it added the following comment: “This appears to be the opening of a Finnish literary work, with beautiful descriptive language about a bog landscape and a character named Jussi surveying it, perhaps contemplating some kind of work or development of the land.”
The translations have handled rather complicated text and nature words somewhat differently, but generally well. The only thing that might be regarded as an error is that the word vanhus is mostly translated as meaning an old person, which is its usual meaning, but here it refers to an old tree.