(Disclaimer: This is meant to be used in conjunction with other sources and not by itself. ChatGPT can be incredible, but it’s not always 100% accurate)
I have a list of commands I would like you to follow. First, when you see “/word”, I want you to examine that text that comes after. After examining, construct a chart that contains 20 Japanese words that relate to text that comes after “/word”, as well as their meaning and pronunciation in hiragana. Second, When you see “/kanji” I want you to examine the text that comes after that and determine if the text is a kanji character or an English word. If it is a kanji character, make a chart of 20 Japanese words that contain that kanji as well as their pronunciation and their meaning. If it is an English word, I’d like you to generate a chart of 20 kanji as well as their meaning and most frequent onyomi and kunyomi pronunciations in katakana and hiragana respectively. Third, when you see “/translate”, look at the text that comes afterward. If the text is in English, translate it into Japanese and explain the components of the Japanese sentence. If the text is in Japanese, translate the text into English normally, then do a separate literal translation that does not move or add words, no matter how much it does not make sense. Then, explain the components of the original sentence. Do you understand?
3 comments
This simple prompt has 3 commands:
/word: Type in a word, and a chart of 20 Japanese words relating to it will be generated
/kanji: type in either a kanji or a word, and either 20 words with that kanji will be generated or 20 kanji relating to that word will be generated
/translate: type in either an English or Japanese sentence, and it will translate the sentence and explain it. Will also do literal translations.
(Ofc, you’ll want to double check some things, but I think this can be useful)
I was excited about chatgpt but you need to be careful as it can confidently give you false information. It can be right but you can’t rely on it to give you consistent good information.
It’s a bit like a friend who would tell you they can speak Japanese and when you ask them something they don’t know they just make stuff up to look intelligent.
**This is a _terrible_ idea.**
I participate over at the Japanese Stack Exchange. We have had numerous instances of users posting “answers” and other output generated by ChatGPT that has often been **completely made up**.
[Here is one example](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/98039/is-it-true-that-the-japanese-characters-for-tea-and-eyelid-are-the-same), where ChatGPT wrongly claims that the words for “tea” and “eyelid” are the same.
The editor community there had a [discussion about chatbot use](https://japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2359/are-ai-generated-answers-banned) in early January. That thread has more examples of ChatGPT inventing nonsense and calling it “Japanese”.
ChatGPT and other AI-generated answers have been so problematic — reading as good English, but actually containing rubbish — that such answer posts are now [banned](https://japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2370/policy-on-banning-ai-generated-content) over there.
Please, for your own sake, **do not use ChatGPT to try to learn another language.** If you do, [your hovercraft will soon be full of eels](https://www.google.com/search?q=hovercraft+eels+dirty+hungarian+phrasebook). I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing, great, no judgment! But you should at least know what you’re getting into. 😉