Translation has always been interesting to me as I speak Mandarin, Swedish, and English.

I think a lot of subtlety gets lost in translations, even from person to person. Is the more "academically correct" translation better, or is the one that captures the slang and the vibe in modern terms and memes in a way we can feel the speaker more correct?

I think most people who choose the former look at translations as something that is absolute and objective, but I think translations, like most communication, needs to be subjective to both the speaker and the reader.

And just as humans can get each of these "wrong," LLMs can and will, too

It depends on the intent.

If I want to learn about a culture and language, an objective translation is what I want. E.g. I want to learn the idioms of the time and place, not have them changed by the whim of the translator to something similar but perhaps changing the intent

If I want to persuade or illuminate the topic, then by all means a more approachable translation with modern idiom is more useful.

An example I know of is, an early Dolby cassette recording from a Japanese source had the marketing copy "Smells of the lamp of high technology!" Which is meaningless, even humorous to a Westerner. Not good marketing copy.

But I enjoyed learning something of Japanese culture. That things could 'smell of' something as a way of imagining them.

I am also a Mandarin speaker, and a very interesting thing happens when I try to read classical Chinese by dictionary or my modern understanding of the language: It's vague, lacking nuance, and basically unreadable. It requires very talented translators and skilled academics to make readable modern translations.

For classical Chinese poetry, the best English translations have been other poets, even though most have been unable to read any Chinese! Check out "Lament of the Frontier Guard" by Tang dynasty poet Li Bo (李白), as written by Ezra Pound more than 100 years ago:

By the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand,

Lonely from the beginning of time until now!

Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn.

I climb the towers and towers to watch out the barbarous land:

Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert.

There is no wall left to this village.

Bones white with a thousand frosts,

High heaps, covered with trees and grass;

Who brought this to pass? ...

https://scalar.fas.harvard.edu/resources-for-loss/lament-of-...

I am sure professional translators would find issues on technical and stylistic points, but could any be as evocative with their own translations?

I think we have to be prepared to give LLMs some leeway with language ... or empower humans (both editors and readers) with the tools to "tune" the translations as appropriate to their tastes, understanding, and subjective needs. This is basically what Korny did, trying different tools and consulting other humans as needed with certain colloquialisms.

There’s a great essay by Lydia Davis which appeared in the Paris Review in 2014 (I really should have a better citation, but oh well), which talks about the challenges of translation. To a certain extent, even if you’re writing something original, you’re still writing a translation in terms of trying to find a way to express the idea in your mind within the limitations of the words available to you.

I thought about something similar today. My kid (2.5 years) watches some stuff on Netflix which is translated to Swedish from English. It's very obvious that the voice over and subtitles are done by different teams/companies, because they often mismatch. What I find more interesting is how they differ, and it's related to the "slang vs academic" but it's about culture and context. Stuff like word puns that doesn't work when translated directly, or named being "translated" in one but used directly in the other. Honestly I think it's extremely lazy and cheap on Netflix' part, for adults it's one thing, but for kids it's pretty confusing. (My son is not reading the subtitles yet though)

To add to this, things can also get "lost in translation" even if you're reading something in your native language.

If you're reading something written in the 19th or early 20th century then even something you think you understand might be going over your head, because it's referencing some cultural context obvious to anyone at the time.

It’s also way harder for Chinese too. Different regions have different dialects despite using the same writing system. Different dialects usually mean different culture which means they use different words in different ways like slangs.