Language level of ai "translate to English"

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I had a sentence, I was too lazy to translate myself. So, I thought I could just use the AI helper. So I left my message draft and started a topic darft, I put my sentence into the composer and used the ai to translate it. Even though I knew the german translation, because this was what I just wrote, I had problems understanding the sentence I got as a result. So at the end I translated the sentence on my own. So I wrote “I’m not surprised if developers just know how to do that.” in the message.

@lilly said I should share my experience. I don’t remember the exact wording I wrote and got before. But I tried to reproduce the issue.
The german sentence I wrote and translated with the ai was “Es überrascht mich nicht, dass Entwickler wissen, wie man das macht.”

The ai translated it to “It doesn’t astonish me in the slightest that developers possess the proficiency to execute such tasks.”
I think the version I got before was even more complex. But maybe this one suits to show why I did the translation on my own.

Perhaps it would be better if the translator prioritized simpler language. Because people using a translator likely have limited language skills. If they post a high-level translation, people will likly reply on a similar high level.

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Es überrascht mich nicht, dass Entwickler wissen, wie man das macht.

I used a “custom prompt” composed of

translate to english, using mostly simple and common words

and got

It does not surprise me that developers know how to do this.

I think that’s a better default indeed. Thanks for suggesting it.

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I have another example:

German : “Natürlich kann ich warten.”

AI translate to English Button : “Indeed, I possess the capacity for patience.”
OR : “Of course, it is within my capabilities to maintain patience.”
OR : “Certainly, I am capable of exhibiting patience.”

AI custom prompt “Translate to English” : “Of course, I can wait.”

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Somehow that doesn’t work anymore. Most of the time the sentence just stays in German.
But sometimes it is even worse. I tried to translate “Vielleicht verstehe ich “following” einfach falsch” (Perhaps I am misinterpreting the term “following.”).
One of the results was “<result>Vielleicht verstehe ich "following" einfach falsch</result>”. Which added those result tags I then had to delete to try again.
Another result was : “Das Ergebnis Ihrer Eingabe ist: “Maybe I just misunderstand ‘following’.”” Which is okay, but I still had to delete the “the result of your input is”.
I once received a not an English translation but a German explanation about the meaning of “following”:

"Das Wort “following” kann mehrere Bedeutungen haben, abhängig vom Kontext. Hier sind einige Möglichkeiten:

  1. “Folgend” oder “nachfolgend” - im Sinne von etwas, das nach etwas anderem kommt. Beispiel: “Im following Kapitel werden wir sehen…”
  2. “Folgen” - im Sinne von jemandem oder etwas folgen. Beispiel: “Ich bin ihm auf Instagram following.”
  3. “Anhängerschaft” - verwendet in sozialen Medien, um die Anzahl der Follower zu beschreiben. Beispiel: “Sie hat eine große following.”

Bitte klarifizieren Sie, in welchem Kontext oder in welcher Weise Sie das Wort “following” verwenden möchten, damit ich Ihnen eine genauere Bedeutung oder Übersetzung liefern kann."

So I was curious if that would happen with all English words in a German text. So I tried “Wenn ich das mit meinem Smartphone ansehe”. At first nothing changed at all. So I tried to confirm and use the try again button, but then the text was not translated. It changed to “Ihre Eingabe lautet “Wenn ich das mit meinem Smartphone ansehe”. Was möchten Sie genau wissen oder tun? Wenn Sie Hilfe mit Ihrem Smartphone benötigen, Anweisungen suchen oder Tipps für die Verwendung möchten, teilen Sie mir bitte mehr Details mit.” This is not helpful because I cannot answer that question, when it writes it into my composer, where I cannot answer. And somehow I seems it does not remember the custom prompt at all.