arXiv:2603.22290cs.CLcs.IR2026-03中稿 · LoResLM 2026, EACL…

用少量噪声合成数据,就能让低资源语言嵌入模型性能大幅提升。

Less is More: Adapting Text Embeddings for Low-Resource Languages with Small Scale Noisy Synthetic Data

  • 仅用1万条噪声合成数据微调多语言模型,实现高效语义对齐。
  • 在基准测试中平均提升11-12%,检索性能相对提高20%以上。
  • 适用于无资源语言,尤其适合缺乏高质量数据的社区使用。

低资源语言(LRLs)常因缺乏高质量、大规模数据集而难以训练有效的文本嵌入模型,限制了其在检索增强生成(RAG)和语义搜索等任务中的应用。本文挑战了传统观点——有效语义对齐需依赖海量数据或人工验证的翻译。以具有独特文字系统的亚美尼亚语为例,我们提出一种低成本适配策略:利用开源权重模型将英语Reddit标题-正文对进行翻译,生成小规模噪声合成数据。构建了一个包含现有数据、翻译数据及人工标注数据的综合性评估基准。实验发现显著的“少即是多”现象:仅用1万条噪声合成数据微调mE5模型,即可在基准上实现11-12%的平均性能提升,检索性能相对提升超过20%,媲美训练于约100万样本的模型。进一步表明,增加数据规模、使用先进LLM提升翻译质量或扩展数据领域,均无法超越该最小基线。我们在另一具独特文字系统的低资源语言上验证了结论的普适性。结果表明,低资源语言的语义对齐在早期即趋于饱和,且对噪声高度鲁棒,为资源匮乏社区提供了高性能嵌入模型的民主化路径。相关模型、数据与基准已公开于 https://metric-ai-lab.github.io/less-is-more-embeddings/。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Low-resource languages (LRLs) often lack high-quality, large-scale datasets for training effective text embedding models, hindering their application in tasks like retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and semantic search. In this work, we challenge the prevailing assumption that effective semantic alignment requires massive datasets or pristine, human-verified translations. Focusing on Armenian (an LRL with a unique script), we introduce a cost-effective adaptation strategy using small scale noisy synthetic data generated by translating English Reddit title-body pairs with open-weights models. We establish a comprehensive evaluation benchmark comprising existing datasets, translated data, and a manually curated dataset. Our experiments reveal a surprising "Less is More" phenomenon: fine-tuning a multilingual encoder (mE5) on just 10,000 noisy synthetic pairs yields 11-12\% average improvements across the benchmark with a 20\%+ relative improvement in retrieval performance, matching the performance of models trained on ~1 million examples. Furthermore, we demonstrate that neither increasing data scale, improving translation quality via state-of-the-art LLMs, nor diversifying data domains yields significant gains over this minimal baseline. We validate the generalizability of these findings on another LRL with a unique script. Our results suggest that semantic alignment for LRLs saturates early and is highly robust to noise, democratizing high-performance embedding creation for resource-constrained communities. We release the model, data, and the benchmark at https://metric-ai-lab.github.io/less-is-more-embeddings/ to facilitate further research.

低资源语言文本嵌入合成数据语义对齐

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