Machine Translated Japanese Emails

As I read the Nature article, "Why Japan is Building its own version of ChatGPT" it made me wonder how good current AI really are at the tasks spotlighted in the article, namely, writing or translating emails. 

I took a few lines from Japanese emails and put them into ChatGPT, DeepL and Google Translate:

皆さんは、是非とも大麻や類似の薬物に近づかないようにして、ご自分を守ってください。ご自分を大切にしてください。お願い致します。

(This is the final line of an email sent by the dean of my school in Japan warning us against using marijuana.)

ChatGPT:

Please do everything you can to avoid getting involved with cannabis or similar substances. Protect yourself. Take good care of yourself.
We earnestly ask this of you.

DeepL:

Please, for your own sake, stay away from marijuana and similar drugs. Protect yourselves. Take care of yourselves. We implore you.

Google Translate:

Please protect yourselves by staying away from cannabis and similar drugs. Take care of yourself. Please do so.

It seemed that for most standard content all three translation services performed well as expected, but when it came to uniquely Japanese words or phrases they started to falter. 

The first of these is 是非 which ChatGPT translated as "please do everything you can" which I personally think sounds natural and gets the meaning across. Meanwhile I'm not entirely sure if DeepL's "for your own sake" is an attempt at translating 是非 or if it's purely an addition to the original. Finally, Google Translate omits it entirely. 

The second Japanese phrase which all three machines attempt with varying results is お願い致します. ChatGPT renders this "we earnestly ask this of you", DeepL says "we implore you" and Google Translate, "please do so". I personally like ChatGPT's phrase the best, even though it would probably still sound rather grandiose in English, it might be appropriate for an official email from the dean of a school. DeepL's choice of phrase "we implore you" and in fact a lot of this translation, comes across as a note too anguished to my ears while Google Translate's "please do so" seems a little too detached.

It's also interesting to note that ChatGPT and DeepL choose to break up the first sentence in Japanese into two separate sentences in English.

The specific use-case mentioned in the article, though, are job application emails, so I decided to put the three translation AIs to the test again with these standard job application email lines:

お世話になっております。 ○○大学○○学部○○学科◯年の○○○○です。 この度、面接の日程変更をしていただきたく、ご連絡を差し上げました。

ご多忙の中、お手数をおかけして大変申し訳ございません。 何卒よろしくお願い申し上げます。

ChatGPT:

I hope this message finds you well.

My name is ○○○○, a ○th-year student in the Department of ○○, Faculty of ○○ at ○○ University.

I am reaching out to kindly request a rescheduling of my interview.

I sincerely apologize for the trouble during your busy schedule.
Thank you very much for your kind attention and support.

Alternatively, a more natural and professional version could be:

I apologize for the inconvenience during your busy schedule and sincerely appreciate your kind attention.

DeepL:

Thank you for your continued support.

I am [Name], a [Year] student in the [Department] of the [Faculty] at [University].

I am contacting you to request a change in the interview schedule.

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may cause during your busy schedule.

I would greatly appreciate your understanding and cooperation.

Google Translate:

Thank you for your help. I am ○○○○, a student in the ○○ department of the ○○ faculty at ○○ University, in my ○○ year. I am contacting you to request a change of interview date.

I apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you during your busy schedule. I would appreciate your help

Overall, I like ChatGPT's translation the best, if it can be called a translation at all. Instead of capturing the meanings of the polite Japanese phrases, ChatGPT largely substitutes them for appropriate English ones, for example お世話になっております for "I hope this email finds you well" and "sincerely appreciate your kind attention for 何卒よろしくお願い致します. The results are natural and sufficiently polite for an English-speaking recruiter. 

DeepL and Google Translate's offerings however, are more literal but possibly therefore more unnatural or even confusing for an English speaker. For example, "thank you for your continued support" sounds more like a line in an email to a long-time customer rather than the second email to a HR department and might even come across as presumptuous. Google Translate's use of the word "help" on the other hand, sounds too informal and maybe even a little curt. They do a better job of capturing the literal meanings of the Japanese phrases with "I would appreciate..." for 何卒よろしくお願い致します but teeter on the edge of impoliteness in English business conventions. 

ChatGPT seems to be the clear winner in terms of following writing and situational conventions, which makes sense since ChatGPT is a generative AI while the other two are purely translation machines. 

Finally, I put an English job application email into ChatGPT to be translated into Japanese and this is how it fared:

Dear Hiring Manager,

I am writing to apply for the [Position] role at [Company Name], as advertised on [Job Board]. I have long admired [Company Name]’s reputation as a leader in the [Industry/Field], and I believe my background and skills make me a strong fit for your team.

お世話になっております。
[求人サイト名]にて掲載されていた[ポジション名]の募集を拝見し、応募させていただきたくご連絡差し上げました。

The results are very good as far as my limited business Japanese can tell, which really makes me wonder if that 20 billion yen is really being well-spent.

- Cheryl