Translating Cave Story into Classical Latin with Gemini (www.semilin.dev)

A recent experiment translated the video game "Cave Story" into Classical Latin using the Gemini language model, highlighting the potential of AI in language pedagogy. The project encountered unique challenges due to the game's dialogue being interspersed with code, prompting the creator to develop a lexing method that extracted dialogues into a structured format. By creating a localization strategy for the AI, the translation yielded some impressive results, with Latin phrases effectively capturing the original English idioms while reflecting the characters' speech styles. However, the experiment also revealed significant limitations in the AI’s translation capabilities, resulting in a mix of high-quality and abysmal translations characterized by occasional hallucinations and morphological errors. Despite these inconsistencies, the endeavor underscores the prospects of using large language models (LLMs) as tools for language translation and learning. While the project yielded a foundation for potential pedagogical use, it also affirmed the need for human oversight to enhance translation accuracy, particularly for less common languages like Latin. This innovative application of AI in gaming may eventually lower barriers to language learning, paving the way for more engaging educational experiences.