Some more play with ChatGPT

This evening, my wife and I were playing with ChatGPT to see how it translates from Japanese and Chinese. I remembered that I had once translated a passage about rhetoric from Tseng Yueh-nung, the first president of Tunghai University. It's written in a more literary style (although it is fairly understandable if you read modern Chinese), so I wanted to test ChatGPT on it. Here are the results:

Me: Translate: 希臘羅馬政治即臻全盛，日中則昃。於是道德淪亡，人懷自競之心，挾數任術，以獵取功名而致富貴。雄辯學 (rhetoric)，逐為必修之科。整體教育反失去重心，一時消極與失望，詭詐與荒瑩，籠罩全歐，不可救藥，如是者數百年。

ChatGPT: During the heyday of Greek and Roman politics, the situation in China and Japan was declining. As a result, morality decayed, and people harbored a sense of rivalry, employing any number of schemes to hunt for fame, wealth, and status. The study of rhetoric became a mandatory subject. Overall, education lost its focus, leading to passivity and despair, deceit and confusion, enveloping all of Europe for hundreds of years, with no hope of recovery.

Me (somewhat rudely): 日中則昃 doesn't have anything to do with Japan and China. It's talking about the sun at its zenith declining.

ChatGPT: You are correct, I apologize for the mistake. "日中則昃" is a Chinese idiom that means "the sun is at its zenith and then begins to decline," and it has nothing to do with Japan and China as I previously stated. Here's the corrected translation:

At the height of Greek and Roman politics, the sun was at its zenith and then began to decline, just as the morality of society began to decline. People became competitive, using various means to pursue fame and fortune. The study of eloquence and rhetoric became a required subject. Overall, education lost its focus, leading to a period of passivity and despair, deceit and confusion, that enveloped all of Europe for several hundred years, and seemed irreparable.

I think it did a decent job on the revised translation. It makes the comparison between the sun's decline and the decline of morality in society more obvious with "just as," which is not (I don't think) in the Chinese original (於是 is more like "therefore" or "as a result," not "just as"). So it's taking an implicit comparison and making it explicit. 

We tried ChatGPT with 陋室銘 by 劉禹錫. My wife got a similar kind of situation with the last line, "孔子云：「何陋之有？」", which it translated as something like "What does it matter if it's humble as long as I am at peace?" I generated 10 translations but never got that version. Here's what I got for the last sentence:

1.  Confucius said, "What does it matter if the room is humble?"
2. Confucius said: "What does it matter that the room is simple?"
3. Confucius said, "What does it matter if it's humble?"
4. Confucius said, "How humble it is, yet how significant!" [Hmmm... this one is interesting...]
5. Confucius said, "What humble abodes can also have admirable qualities?" [Hmmm...]
6. Confucius said, "How can a humble abode be considered inferior?"
7. Confucius said, "What does being shabby matter?"
8. Confucius said, "What is humble can also be distinguished."
9. Confucius said, "What does it matter that it is humble?"
10. Confucius said, "What is humble about it?" [I think ChatGPT was getting tired here...]

I looked for some English translations online. This one by Abby Lu notes that "Confucius actually said: ‘What is ugly about the home of a gentleman?’, the latter of which the author cut out of humility." (子曰：君子居之，何陋之有？). See also this translation (an interesting website, by the way!). 

Anyway, I'm getting off-track now, and I should go to bed so I can get back to my book review tomorrow. My book review is coming along well, by the way (thanks for asking); I think I'll be able to get a good draft of it done by Friday.