I picked a random story in Spanish [1], which is my native language.
First, and maybe up for discussion, "gnocchi" in spanish is written "ñoqui". See [2] for a commercial example or check the story's title.
Second, the sentence "Después de aprender a hacer gnocchis con su abuela, Hendrik nunca le gusta los gnocchis de nadie más" is wrong: the part after the comma should read "a Hendrik nunca le gustaron los ñoquis de nadie más". I'm also unhappy with "Siempre dice que faltaba algo" as it makes a funny mix of present and past tenses.
Third, I think the last paragraph is incoherent as Hendrik learns the nutmeg trick twice (learns from grandma about nutmeg -> finds other gnocchis lacking -> learns about nutmeg).
The well-known LLMs are surprisingly bad in languages that are not English. I'm not sure I would trust them just yet.
I had a look at two German stories. They felt a little off. But I know from having looked at graded reader for German in the past, they feel a little weird for native speakers because of their simple grammar while obviously not being aimed at children.
But I have found a spell checking error, inconsistent use of formal and informal voice and an expression that was not quite right in the context. I wonder about the quality assurance part in the setup.
I think the "nutmeg trick" was ok -- it didn't say Hendrik learned the trick from his grandmother the first time, only that there was a trick. Hendrik only learns it later when trying to recreate them.
I agree, though, that a human writer would have probably made this clearer. It would have been made explicit that Hendrik missed the trick the first time around.
Hey! thanks for having a look and for dropping some feedback :) Yea, "gnocchi" is questionable ha but some people do write gnocchi to respect their origin, for example in restaurants. But yeah, fair, probably better to use the real Spanish version.
>> "Hendrik nunca le gusta los gnocchis de nadie más"
will add the "a" at the begginning! thanks for spotting that.
>> "Siempre dice que faltaba algo"
This is a common way of saying things, at least in my region. That makes Spanish harder, there are so many "versions".
>> "he well-known LLMs are surprisingly bad in languages that are not English"
So true.
Anecdotally I've noticed new generations struggle a lot more with language and writing. Imagine the future when they all learn from badly generated AI grammar. Even the good grammar generated writing is still generic AI writing.
First, and maybe up for discussion, "gnocchi" in spanish is written "ñoqui". See [2] for a commercial example or check the story's title.
Second, the sentence "Después de aprender a hacer gnocchis con su abuela, Hendrik nunca le gusta los gnocchis de nadie más" is wrong: the part after the comma should read "a Hendrik nunca le gustaron los ñoquis de nadie más". I'm also unhappy with "Siempre dice que faltaba algo" as it makes a funny mix of present and past tenses.
Third, I think the last paragraph is incoherent as Hendrik learns the nutmeg trick twice (learns from grandma about nutmeg -> finds other gnocchis lacking -> learns about nutmeg).
The well-known LLMs are surprisingly bad in languages that are not English. I'm not sure I would trust them just yet.
[1] https://webbu.app/l/spanish/story/los-%C3%B1oquis-de-la-abue...
[2] https://www.pastasgallo.es/productos/noquis-de-patata-seca/