Kirk here with some notes about the machine translation of this Japanese article using Chat-GPT-3.5. Here’s the opening paragraph, which I think is basically accurate:

— start translation — Tsuruya Department Store and JR Kumamoto City will start selling premium shopping vouchers that allow you to shop for 12,000 yen with a 10,000 yen purchase from the 8th onwards. These vouchers are being sold as part of the city’s measures against rising prices and are available to residents of Kumamoto City or those commuting or attending school in the city. — end translation —

When I presented Chat-GPT with the Japanese and asked for the translation, I added the following request:

“After you finish the translation, please list any words or expressions for which your confidence in the accuracy of your translation is low.”

Here’s the rest of the translation and it’s notes about confidence:

— start quote from Chat-GPT-3.5 — Tsuruya Department Store will sell a total of 5,000 sets on the 8th and 9th. These vouchers can be used throughout the store, except for some products, from the 8th until November 23rd. On both days, they will distribute numbered tickets at the entrance on the Suizomachi side of the 1st floor of the East Building starting at 9 a.m., and sales will begin at 10 a.m. in the Tsuruya Hall on the 7th floor of the East Building. The store encourages shoppers to enjoy their shopping experience, mentioning ongoing events like the “British Fair” and the “Oomichi Sanshoku Market.”

Words/expression with low translation confidence:

・プレミアム付き商品券 (premium shopping vouchers) - The translation is accurate, but the specific meaning of “premium” might vary depending on the context. ・物価高騰対策支援事業 (measures against rising prices support project) - While the translation is generally accurate, the exact nuances of this phrase may vary depending on the context. ・水道町側入り口 (entrance on the Suizomachi side) - The translation is accurate, but the exact location may not be clear without local knowledge. ・英国フェア (British Fair) and 大道産子市 (Oomichi Sanshoku Market) - These are event names, and the translation is accurate, but the cultural context may not be fully conveyed. — end quote —

It got Suido-cho wrong and 大道産子市 (Tsuruya’s name for an even) seems to be read “Oodo Sanko Ichi” so that’s wrong too. When I asked DeepL to translate the same section, DeepL got Suidocho right but rendered “大道産子市” as “Great Michi-ko Market,” which is more distracting than informative.

One interesting thing about Chat-GPT is that you can tell it to do stuff in a particular way. For example, I got it to added ふりがな to the first paragraph as follows:

— start quote — 鶴屋百貨店（つるやひゃっかてん、熊本市中央区[ちゅうおうく]）とJR熊本シティ（JRくまもとシティ、同市西区[にしく]）は8日[はちにち]から、1万円[いちまんえん]で1万2千円[いちまんにせんえん]分[ぶん]の買い物[かいもの]ができるプレミアム付き[ぷれみあむつき]商品券[しょうひんけん]をそれぞれ販売[はんばい]する。市[し]の物価高騰[ぶっかこうとう]対策[たいさく]支援[しえん]事業[じぎょう]を活用[かつよう]し、市内[しない]在住[ざいじゅう]か市内[しない]への通勤[つうきん]・通学者[つうがくしゃ]が対象[たいしょう]。 — end quote —

Actually, though, this last task required some “training.” I had to point out several errors before it would do just what I wanted.

By the way, last night I was trying to make sense of some classical Japanese (an edict or 詔書 issued by Emperor Showa in the Taisho period) and Chat-GPT gave me a pretty darn good (as far as I can tell) rendering of the content in modern Japanese. It’s only a tool but it seems to be on its way to becoming an extremely powerful tool. Future versions are likely to be mind-blowingly good.