I had a related issue with the colon. I frequently want to translate English text to European Portuguese and any non-English text into English. I provided the following instruction to ChatGPT:
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Any text in English following a colon (“:”) with not text preceding the colon should be translated into European Portuguese.
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Any text in any language other than English following a colon (“:”) with not text preceding the colon should be translated into English.
The result was inconsistent - it worked often but often ChatGPT would (1) start conversing in Portuguese on all inquiries and/or (2) instead of translating - respond to the translation request as if it was an inquiry.
I asked ChatGPT why this was and ChatGPT alerted me to the colon developer issue and this forum link. I asked ChatGPT for an alternative to a colon as a translation request shortcut and ChatGPT offered this:
“Translate the following text to European Portuguese:
[Your English text here]”
I said that I had to translate frequently and did not see the need or to type that much explanatory text with clear overarching instructions, and was looking for a briefer shortcut.
ChatGPT then responded with this alternative:
“I understand your need for a concise method to indicate translations without using colons. To achieve this, we can implement a simple tagging system. Here’s how it works:
• For translations from English to European Portuguese, precede your text with the tag [EN-PT].
• For translations from any other language to English, use the tag [XX-EN], where XX represents the source language’s ISO 639-1 code.
Examples:
1. English to European Portuguese:
[EN-PT] Please close the door.
Translation:
Por favor, feche a porta.
2. Spanish to English:
[ES-EN] Por favor, cierra la puerta.
Translation:
Please close the door.
3. French to English:
[FR-EN] Veuillez fermer la porte.
Translation:
Please close the door.
Note: This tagging system ensures clarity and brevity in your translation requests. If you have specific preferences or need further customization, feel free to let me know.”
I responded as follows:
“That code is still too long. If the instruction is to translate ALL English text to European Portuguese preceded by a code, why would I need to identify the source or destination languages?
Also, if the second instruction is to translate ALL non-English text preceded by a code into English, once again, why would I need to identify the source or destination languages?
The source and destination languages are clear in the [over-arching]instructions.”
ChatGPT then responded with this:
“Apologies for the earlier suggestions. To streamline your translation process without specifying source or target languages each time, we can implement a simple tagging system. Here’s how it works:
• For English to European Portuguese translations, precede your text with the tag [T].
• For any other language to English translations, use the tag [T] as well.
Examples:
1. English to European Portuguese:
[T] Please close the door.
Translation:
Por favor, feche a porta.
2. Spanish to English:
[T] Por favor, cierra la puerta.
Translation:
Please close the door.
This streamlined approach eliminates the need to specify languages each time, as the instructions you’ve provided already define the translation directions. If you have any further preferences or need additional assistance, please let me know.”
I responded that I thought that was a good alternative to the colon and will try it out (which I have yet to do).
