Retrieval for User-Centered Translation: Lessons from RAG-based Tools for Low-Resource Domains
Machine translation for low-resource languages suffers from domain-imbalanced corpora, causing quality degradation on technical text. However, in-context learning opens the possibility to rely on limited in-domain corpora to inform translation. We present lessons learned from Tulun, a retrieval-augmented system combining neural MT with LLM post-editing, guided by user-configurable translation memories and glossaries. Deployed for medical translation in Timor-Leste (Tetun) and disaster relief translation in Vanuatu (Bislama), the system achieves accuracy improvements over baseline MT by 16.90-22.41 ChrF++ points, while offering rapid adaptability and transparency to end-users. Key recommendations include: domain granularity matters more than broad categories; translation target audience should inform retrieval; and RAG-augmented MT is most effective for languages that lack domain corpora but remain within LLM pretraining distributions.