Multilingual KokoroChat: A Multi-LLM Ensemble Translation Method for Creating a Multilingual Counseling Dialogue Dataset

arXiv cs.CL / 3/25/2026

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Key Points

  • Multilingual KokoroChat is a new dataset that translates a large manually authored Japanese counseling dialogue corpus (KokoroChat) into English and Chinese to address limited availability of high-quality public counseling data.
  • Because translation quality depends on the input and no single LLM can consistently be best, the authors introduce a multi-LLM ensemble translation pipeline tailored for high-fidelity output in a sensitive domain.
  • The method generates diverse translation hypotheses using multiple distinct LLMs, then uses a separate LLM to select and refine the final translation by analyzing strengths and weaknesses across the hypotheses.
  • Human preference studies validate that translations from the ensemble approach are preferred over those produced by any individual state-of-the-art LLM, indicating improved fidelity.
  • The dataset is released publicly on GitHub, enabling researchers to build and evaluate multilingual counseling dialogue systems using higher-quality training material.

Abstract

To address the critical scarcity of high-quality, publicly available counseling dialogue datasets, we created Multilingual KokoroChat by translating KokoroChat, a large-scale manually authored Japanese counseling corpus, into both English and Chinese. A key challenge in this process is that the optimal model for translation varies by input, making it impossible for any single model to consistently guarantee the highest quality. In a sensitive domain like counseling, where the highest possible translation fidelity is essential, relying on a single LLM is therefore insufficient. To overcome this challenge, we developed and employed a novel multi-LLM ensemble method. Our approach first generates diverse hypotheses from multiple distinct LLMs. A single LLM then produces a high-quality translation based on an analysis of the respective strengths and weaknesses of all presented hypotheses. The quality of ``Multilingual KokoroChat'' was rigorously validated through human preference studies. These evaluations confirmed that the translations produced by our ensemble method were preferred from any individual state-of-the-art LLM. This strong preference confirms the superior quality of our method's outputs. The Multilingual KokoroChat is available at https://github.com/UEC-InabaLab/MultilingualKokoroChat.