Just Go Parallel: Improving the Multilingual Capabilities of Large Language Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Qorib, Muhammad Reza, Li, Junyi, Ng, Hwee Tou
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Qorib, Muhammad Reza
Li, Junyi
Ng, Hwee Tou
author_facet Qorib, Muhammad Reza
Li, Junyi
Ng, Hwee Tou
contents Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive translation capabilities even without being explicitly trained on parallel data. This remarkable property has led some to believe that parallel data is no longer necessary for building multilingual language models. While some attribute this to the emergent abilities of LLMs due to scale, recent work suggests that it is actually caused by incidental bilingual signals present in the training data. Various methods have been proposed to maximize the utility of parallel data to enhance the multilingual capabilities of multilingual encoder-based and encoder-decoder language models. However, some decoder-based LLMs opt to ignore parallel data instead. In this work, we conduct a systematic study on the impact of adding parallel data on LLMs' multilingual capabilities, focusing specifically on translation and multilingual common-sense reasoning. Through controlled experiments, we demonstrate that parallel data can significantly improve LLMs' multilingual capabilities.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_13044
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Just Go Parallel: Improving the Multilingual Capabilities of Large Language Models
Qorib, Muhammad Reza
Li, Junyi
Ng, Hwee Tou
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive translation capabilities even without being explicitly trained on parallel data. This remarkable property has led some to believe that parallel data is no longer necessary for building multilingual language models. While some attribute this to the emergent abilities of LLMs due to scale, recent work suggests that it is actually caused by incidental bilingual signals present in the training data. Various methods have been proposed to maximize the utility of parallel data to enhance the multilingual capabilities of multilingual encoder-based and encoder-decoder language models. However, some decoder-based LLMs opt to ignore parallel data instead. In this work, we conduct a systematic study on the impact of adding parallel data on LLMs' multilingual capabilities, focusing specifically on translation and multilingual common-sense reasoning. Through controlled experiments, we demonstrate that parallel data can significantly improve LLMs' multilingual capabilities.
title Just Go Parallel: Improving the Multilingual Capabilities of Large Language Models
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13044