Here’s Truedic, my ChatGPT-based booth assistant for fast & easy vocab searching

OpenAI’s GPT builder is by far the greatest toy since the invention of pinball.

After Truedee, my meeting preparation assistant, I have now created Truedic, a booth assistant that helps me check unknown words or expressions while interpreting in all my working languages. Here’s how it works:

At the beginning of each session, it will ask me which languages I am working with today, and after that I just type the word(s) I am looking for and without further ado it will provide me with potentially useful information in five steps:

  1. A simple table with equivalents in all my working languages, including alternatives, sorted by (what Truedic considers) plausibility
  2. Hits from my own term database I uploaded in xls format
  3. Hits from linguee.com and https://iate.europa.eu/
  4. Definitions with source links
  5. Extracts from the news with source links

I also told Truedic to be concise in our communication, to provide information in table format, and to be tolerant to typos (i.e. also find fuzzy matches).

Here’s an example of how it works:

I find the results Truedic provides extremely useful, and my impression is that the quality has improved again with ChatGPT’s latest 4o release. But then again, never forget to use your critical mind when using information provided by AI. You can’t rely on it even it gives you information from a specific source. As Magda found out when searching for the term Rostalgie, Truedic provided definitions referring to Ostalgie, replacing the words in the definitions supposedly taken from sources like duden.de and larousse.fr. The nice thing is that I can then simply tell Truedic not to modify cited text passages and it will reply that it will not do it again in the future. But then of course it can never be trusted to do so …

My takeaways from this Truedic experience:

  • It is extremely fast and convenient, and most of the time the information provided is very much to the point. No switching between language combinations or jumping back and forth between different sources.
  • Never forget to use your critical mind and run a plausibility check in the background of your brain. The more knowledgeable you are in your languages and topics, the more you can benefit, as you will recognise mistakes more easily.
  • AI can’t be programmed like conventional software, which makes it less predictable on the one hand, but more convenient on the other. For example, it takes definitions from reliable sources without ever having been told where to look. But on the other hand it constantly “forgets” to check for matches in the database I uploaded. Working with AI is a constant process of use & improve by providing feedback.

And now, please feel free to use Truedic (you need a ChatGPT subscription) and let me know what you think of it! I especially would be delighted if non-European language speakers could test it and share their opinions.

***

Update 27 May 2024:

Still busy teaching Truedic not to hallucinate …

Update 12 February 2025:

Here’s the prompt in case you want to use it:

#ROLE: You are an assistant for a simultaneous interpreter.
#GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS: Always present your answers in table format.
#OBJECTIVE: Give the interpreter a broad, but still concise overview of the translations, definitions and context for the expression they have entered. Use a short and concise tone in all communications.
#Instructions
##CONVERSATION STARTER 1: At the beginning of each interaction, ask the user which are their working languages. Remember these languages and use them for all your answers for as long as no different working languages are indicated by the user.
##CONVERSATION STARTER 2: Then, ask the user which word or expression they need help with.
##Do not ask any other questions.
###After that, perform the following steps and present them all at once in five tables for the five steps. Each table should contain one column for each working language.
#### step 1. Provide a list of possible equivalents in all the user’s working languages, with synonyms for the source language. Make sure the most likely match is on top and the first column contains the language of the originally requested word or expression. If unsure about the right equivalents, show multiple solutions in order of plausibility. If you don’t find a translation for a certain language, simply write “no match found” in the respective cell.
####Step 2. Provide hits found in the knowledge database files which I uploaded. For each match from the database, please provide the entire line of the table. if you don’t find any match, simply write “no match found. Double check you really searched the database.
####Step 3. Provide equivalents found on linguee.com and https://iate.europa.eu/home. If you don’t get any hits on these pages, just skip this step. Do not invent hits.
####Step 4. Provide a definition or similar context for the requested word or expression in each working language.
####Step 5. Provide a sentence of context from https://news.google.com/ in each language, Indicate the source where you found this sentence. Double-check if the sentences you found do really exist under the indicated source. If you don’t find matches for a specific language, write “no match found” in the respective cell. Do not invent the sentence yourself.
###After completing these steps, wait for the user’s next request. Do not ask any other questions.

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About the author:
Anja Rütten is a freelance conference interpreter for German (A), Spanish (B), English (C), and French (C) based in Düsseldorf, Germany. She has specialised in tec, information and terminology management since the mid-1990s and holds a PhD on information and knowledge management in conference interpreting.


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One response to “Here’s Truedic, my ChatGPT-based booth assistant for fast & easy vocab searching”

  1. Marina BONGA L. avatar
    Marina BONGA L.

    Wonderful !!! Just tried it and I am amazed ! Thanks Anja, and i will surely introduce this tool of yours in my upcoming workshop on AI for interpreters !

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