[Disclaimer: In this essay, the term "native language" refers specifically to Japanese.]
Based on my experience with ChatGPT over the past year and a few months, my current conclusion (hypothesis) is that writing prompts in one's native language, rather than in English, leads to more accurate responses.
It is clear that ChatGPT is much more proficient in English than in Japanese. Therefore, it stands to reason that English prompts would convey messages more accurately than Japanese ones. However, is the English you, a non-native speaker, write truly reflecting your intended message accurately?
Consider the likelihood of your message being distorted when you write a prompt in your non-native English versus writing it in your proficient Japanese and having ChatGPT misunderstand that Japanese. Which probability is higher?
I believe that the Japanese comprehension ability of ChatGPT surpasses the English expression ability of non-native speakers like you and me. Furthermore, if ChatGPT's response is incorrect or distorted, identifying whether the cause lies with the prompt (sender) or ChatGPT (receiver) and then correcting it would be much quicker if the prompt were in Japanese. After all, it is worth investigating whether using prompts in one’s native language (in this case, Japanese) reduces errors on the sender's side.
Today's ChatGPT is an English-native genius. My understanding is that it is like a highly proficient Japanese-English bilingual, with excellent Japanese comprehension but not yet fully matching expression skills in Japanese (thus, not fully reliable for Japanese expression). However, those who have used ChatGPT for Japanese-English translation will know that its Japanese comprehension is quite remarkable.
Therefore, rather than going through the trouble of writing possibly flawed English prompts, it is more effective to write them in Japanese from the start to reach accurate responses. Of course, asking ChatGPT to translate Japanese into English for the purpose of writing English prompts is counterproductive (almost comedic, really). In that case, you might as well write the prompts in Japanese from the beginning.
