Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly through GPT models, have significantly enhanced machine translation (MT) capabilities, offering more accurate and nuanced translations. This study investigates the influence of different translation prompts on the quality of legal translations generated by Generative Pretrained Transformer-4 (GPT-4) Turbo. By applying the Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM) framework, the research evaluates both the types and frequency of errors found in translations produced by existing and newly developed prompts. The study focuses on comparing translation commission prompts—designed to enhance context-specific texts—with existing prompts in terms of translation quality. A dataset of 14 Saudi Laws, drawn from official sources, serves as the basis for analysis, with reference translations used as benchmarks. The findings reveal that the newly developed prompts, specifically tailored for legal translation, resulted in significantly lower error rates (10-12%) compared to existing prompts, which demonstrated error rates ranging from 34% to 45%. These results underscore the transformative potential of tailored prompt engineering in achieving high-quality legal translations by reducing errors in terminology, accuracy, and style. By categorising and ranking translation errors by severity, the research highlights the impact of prompt engineering on improving legal translation performance. These findings contribute to the development of more effective MT systems, offering practical insights for refining machine translation in the legal field and beyond.

Keywords: GPT-4 Turbo; Legal Translation; Machine Translation; Multidimensional Quality Metrics; Translation Commission

DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2026-3201-11

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