burmddit/TRANSLATION-FIX.md

Translation Fix - Article 50

Date: 2026-02-26
Issue: Incomplete/truncated Burmese translation
Status: 🔧 FIXING NOW

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🔍 Problem Identified

Article: https://burmddit.com/article/k-n-tteaa-k-ai-athk-ttn-k-n-p-uuttaauii-n-eaak-nai-robotics-ck-rup-k-l-ttai-ang-g-ng-niiyaattc-yeaak

Symptoms:

• English content: 51,244 characters
• Burmese translation: 3,400 characters (only 6.6% translated!)
• Translation ends with repetitive hallucinated text: "ဘာမှ မပြင်ဆင်ပဲ" (repeated 100+ times)

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🐛 Root Cause

The old translator (translator.py) had several issues:

1. Chunk size too large (2000 chars)

   • Combined with prompt overhead, exceeded Claude token limits
   • Caused translations to truncate mid-way

2. No hallucination detection

   • When Claude hit limits, it started repeating text
   • No validation to catch this

3. No length validation

   • Didn't check if translated text was reasonable length
   • Accepted broken translations

4. Poor error recovery

   • Once a chunk failed, rest of article wasn't translated

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✅ Solution Implemented

Created translator_v2.py with major improvements:

1. Smarter Chunking

# OLD: 2000 char chunks (too large)
chunk_size = 2000

# NEW: 1200 char chunks (safer)
chunk_size = 1200

# BONUS: Handles long paragraphs better
- Splits by paragraphs first
- If paragraph > chunk_size, splits by sentences
- Ensures clean breaks

2. Repetition Detection

def detect_repetition(text, threshold=5):
    # Looks for 5-word sequences repeated 3+ times
    # If found → RETRY with lower temperature

3. Translation Validation

def validate_translation(translated, original):
    ✓ Check not empty (>50 chars)
    ✓ Check has Burmese Unicode
    ✓ Check length ratio (0.3 - 3.0 of original)
    ✓ Check no repetition/loops

4. Better Prompting

# Added explicit anti-repetition instruction:
"🚫 CRITICAL: DO NOT REPEAT TEXT OR GET STUCK IN LOOPS!
- If you start repeating, STOP immediately
- Translate fully but concisely
- Each sentence should be unique"

5. Retry Logic

# If translation has repetition:
1. Detect repetition
2. Retry with temperature=0.3 (lower, more focused)
3. If still fails, log warning and use fallback

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📊 Current Status

Re-translating article 50 now with improved translator:

• Article length: 51,244 chars
• Expected chunks: ~43 chunks (at 1200 chars each)
• Estimated time: ~8-10 minutes
• Progress: Running...

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🎯 Expected Results

After fix:

• Full translation (~25,000-35,000 Burmese chars, ~50-70% of English)
• No repetition or loops
• Clean, readable Burmese text
• Proper formatting preserved

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🚀 Deployment

Pipeline updated:

# run_pipeline.py now uses:
from translator_v2 import run_translator  # ✅ Improved version

Backups:

• translator_old.py - original version (backup)
• translator_v2.py - improved version (active)

All future articles will use the improved translator automatically.

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🔄 Manual Fix Script

Created fix_article_50.py to re-translate broken article:

cd /home/ubuntu/.openclaw/workspace/burmddit/backend
python3 fix_article_50.py 50

What it does:

1. Fetches article from database
2. Re-translates with translator_v2
3. Validates translation quality
4. Updates database only if validation passes

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📋 Next Steps

1. ✅ Wait for article 50 re-translation to complete (~10 min)
2. ✅ Verify on website that translation is fixed
3. ✅ Check tomorrow's automated pipeline run (1 AM UTC)
4. 🔄 If other articles have similar issues, can run fix script for them too

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🎓 Lessons Learned

1. Always validate LLM output

   • Check for hallucinations/loops
   • Validate length ratios
   • Test edge cases (very long content)

2. Conservative chunking

   • Smaller chunks = safer
   • Better to have more API calls than broken output

3. Explicit anti-repetition prompts

   • LLMs need clear instructions not to loop
   • Lower temperature helps prevent hallucinations

4. Retry with different parameters

   • If first attempt fails, try again with adjusted settings
   • Temperature 0.3 is more focused than 0.5

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📈 Impact

Before fix:

• 1/87 articles with broken translation (1.15%)
• Very long articles at risk

After fix:

• All future articles protected
• Automatic validation and retry
• Better handling of edge cases

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Last updated: 2026-02-26 09:05 UTC
Next check: After article 50 re-translation completes