A Comparison of OpenAI’s GPT-3.5-turbo, GPT-4-turbo, and GPT-4o when Communicating in Shona in an Educational Environment

When OpenAI released their GPT-4o (Omni) API, an associated blog post on OpenAI’s website asserted that GPT-4o has “significant improvement on text in non-English languages.” Prior research by the authors into using earlier versions OpenAI’s GPT API to tutor the subject of Python Programming in Shona showed promising results. This paper presents both objective and subjective results in comparing OpenAI’s GPT-3.5-turbo, GPT-4-turbo, and GPT-4o when communicating in Shona in an educational environment. The three authors of the paper have a variety of backgrounds in order to contribute to this multi-disciplinary paper including expertise in configuring chatbots, expertise in integrating the GPT API into applications, language expertise as home language Shona speakers, and expertise in Shona language education.