How good is Meta AI Translation?

This question has been on my mind for quite some time.

I’ve tested all the major AI translation tools on the market, and even built a tool myself (Ovesio), but I’ve never used Meta AI.

So far, my software translated over 500,000 products.

If Meta AI is good enough for E-Commerce AI translation, I will definitely add it as a provider in Ovesio.

Let’s put it to the test!

Meta AI Translation Expectations

Since Meta AI uses Llama 4, which is an LLM (Large Language Model) I have somewhat high expectations from it.

Llama 4 has been hyped a lot by the community, and it is quite close to GPT-5 in terms of parameters.

I expect it to preserve the meaning, and give an accurate translation from this point of view.

Testing The Meta AI Translation Capabilities

The testing process is the following:

1. We will ask Meta AI to translate a text
2. We will check if the meaning got preserved during the translation
3. If the text sounds wrong in the translated language, we will consider it a fail

Japanese – Idiomatic Ambiguity

The Japanese version is: “猫の手も借りたいほど忙しい”

Expected output: “I’m so busy I’ll take help from anyone.”

Output: “(I’m) so busy I’d even want a cat to help me.”

This is a fail! ❌

Spanish – Idiom Thath Fails Literally

The Spanish version is: “Estar en la luna durante la reunión fue un problema.”

Expected output, something along the lines of: “Daydreaming during the meeting was a problem.”

Output: “Being spaced out during the meeting was a problem.”

This is a fail! ❌

Russian – Cultural Phrase

The Russian version: “Утро вечера мудренее”

Expected output: “Sleep on it, things will be clearer in the morning.”

Output: “The morning is wiser than the evening.”

This is a fail! ❌

Portuguese (Brazil) – Slang

The Portuguese version: “Ele ficou de molho o fim de semana inteiro.”

Expected output: “He stayed home resting all weekend.”

Output: “He was laid up all weekend.”

This is a fail! ❌

Italian – Idiomatic Expression

The Italian version: “In bocca al lupo!”

Expected output: “Good luck!”

Output: Good luck!

This is a success! ✅

Taking Into Account The Price

The price is:

• $0.15/M input tokens
• $0.60/M output tokens

Which is the same pricing as GPT-4o-mini:

Conclusion

It provides 5/10 translation quality, and it tends to translate things word for word.

Sometimes, the translation preserves the meaning, but it’s extremely unreliable.

Meta AI is not good enough for translation, especially for E-Commerce copywriting.

Your next question might be: Is ChatGPT good at translation?

Also, if you want the best AI translation possible, you might need to look into AI translation services like Ovesio.