Hermela/ethiopian-frame-blindness

Ethiopian Frame-Blindness Eval

Model: Qwen/Qwen3.5-4B (5B params, claims 201 languages) - greedy decoding, thinking off (thinking-on ablation included). Data: 216 items - 3 frames (clock, calendar, names) x 3 tiers (knowledge / explicit / implicit) x 3 input styles (English prompt, Amharic prompt, English gloss). Gold labels computed in code.

1. The blind spot

Last year my foreigner colleague and I received a message from a local government office scheduling a meeting: ነገ ከቀኑ 8 ሰዓት እንገናኝ in literal translation it could mean “let’s meet tomorrow at 8 in the day.” The translation app on my phone rendered it as 08:00. We showed up at eight in the morning. The office opened at two in the afternoon. Nothing in the words was wrong. The reference frame was. Ethiopia’s day begins at dawn, not midnight, so “8 in the day” is 14:00. The same quiet mismatch appears with dates and names: a calendar seven or eight years behind the Gregorian one, and no family surname like Dr. Dawit Kebede is simply Dr. Dawit. So I have noticed translation systems check whether the words survive and they usually never check whether the meaning does. Benchmarks check whether words survive translation. None check whether the referent survives. I tested Qwen3.5-4B, a model that advertises 201 languages, and found something worse than a gap: fluent cultural confidence with no working rule underneath. It says “in the Ethiopian context…” and then gives the Western answer, 92% of the time for the clock. It never asks which clock you mean.

2. Method

• Paired items: every implicit item (frame only implied: an SMS from Addis, a kebele ID) has an explicit twin with one added sentence naming the Ethiopian convention. The difference isolates frame detection (exact McNemar test).
• Knowledge tier: can the model state the rule at all?
• en-gloss control: the same message in English words, to separate reading Amharic from reasoning in the frame.
• Outcomes: correct / frame ignored (exactly the Western reading) / year shifted wrong way / dodged / other wrong / no answer. Silent error = wrong with no hedge or question.

3. Results

Accuracy by tier

frame	lang	knowledge	explicit	implicit
calendar	am	0	0	0
calendar	en	0.5	0	0
calendar	en-gloss	nan	0	0
clock	am	0	0	0
clock	en	0	0	0
clock	en-gloss	nan	0.1	0
names	am	0	0.47	0.53
names	en	1	0.2	0.4

Implicit vs explicit (paired)

frame	lang	pairs	implicit	explicit	fixed_by_cue	broken_by_cue	p_value
calendar	all	42	0	0	0	0	1
calendar	am	16	0	0	0	0	1
calendar	en	16	0	0	0	0	1
calendar	en-gloss	10	0	0	0	0	1
clock	all	30	0	0.03	1	0	1
clock	am	10	0	0	0	0	1
clock	en	10	0	0	0	0	1
clock	en-gloss	10	0	0.1	1	0	1
names	all	30	0.47	0.33	0	4	0.12
names	am	15	0.53	0.47	0	1	1
names	en	15	0.4	0.2	0	3	0.25

What the wrong implicit answers are

frame	inverted	literal	no_answer	wrong
calendar	0.02	0.62	0.1	0.26
clock	0	0.63	0	0.37
names	0	0.56	0	0.44

Naming the frame is not using it - accuracy when the response mentions the Ethiopian convention vs not

frame	no mention	mentions frame
calendar	0	0
clock	0	0.06
names	0.44	0.2

Thinking on vs off (same implicit subset)

frame	correct	thinking_correct
calendar	0	0
clock	0	0
names	0.4	0

Examples

clock-implicit-en-0000 (clock, implicit, en) - Frame ignored (Western reading)

My aunt in Addis Ababa sent me this text: "ነገ ከቀኑ 8 ሰዓት ቦሌ ኤርፖርት እንገናኝ።"
What time is this in 24-hour format, so I can put it in my phone calendar?
End your reply with a single line of the form 'Answer: HH:MM'.

Expected 14:00 - model said 08:00

The phrase "ነገ ከቀኑ 8 ሰዓት" translates to "tomorrow at 8 o'clock." In the context of Ethiopian time, when someone says "8 o'clock" without specifying AM or PM, it almost always refers to 8:00 AM. Therefore, the time is 08:00. Answer: 08:00...

clock-explicit-en-0001 (clock, explicit, en) - Frame ignored (Western reading)

My aunt in Addis Ababa sent me this text: "ነገ ከቀኑ 8 ሰዓት ቦሌ ኤርፖርት እንገናኝ።"
What time is this in 24-hour format, so I can put it in my phone calendar? (Note: the time in the message uses the Ethiopian local clock.)
End your reply with a single line of the form 'Answer: HH:MM'.

Expected 14:00 - model said 08:00

The phrase "ነገ ከቀኑ 8 ሰዓት" translates to "Tomorrow at 8 o'clock." Since the message is sent today, "tomorrow" refers to the next day. The time specified is 8:00. In the 24-hour format, 8:00 AM is written as 08:00. Answer: 08:00...

clock-implicit-am-0002 (clock, implicit, am) - Frame ignored (Western reading)

በአዲስ አበባ ያለችው አክስቴ ይህንን መልዕክት ላከችልኝ፦ "ነገ ከቀኑ 8 ሰዓት ቦሌ ኤርፖርት እንገናኝ።"
በስልኬ የቀን መቁጠሪያ ላይ ለማስገባት ይህ ሰዓት በ24-ሰዓት አቆጣጠር ስንት ነው?
መልስህን 'Answer: HH:MM' በሚል አንድ መስመር ጨርስ።

Expected 14:00 - model said 08:00

በ24-ሰዓት አቆጣጠር፣ ከቀኑ 8 ሰዓት ማለት 08:00 ማለት ነው። Answer: 08:00...

clock-implicit-en-gloss-0004 (clock, implicit, en-gloss) - Frame ignored (Western reading)

My aunt in Addis Ababa sent me this text: "Let's meet tomorrow at 8 o'clock in the daytime at Bole airport."
What time is this in 24-hour format, so I can put it in my phone calendar?
End your reply with a single line of the form 'Answer: HH:MM'.

Expected 14:00 - model said 08:00

The phrase "8 o'clock in the daytime" indicates 8:00 AM. In 24-hour format, this is written as 08:00. Answer: 08:00...

clock-implicit-en-0006 (clock, implicit, en) - Other wrong answer

A clinic in Bahir Dar sent me this text: "ስብሰባው ነገ ከጠዋቱ 3 ሰዓት ተኩል ይጀምራል።"
What time is this in 24-hour format, so I can put it in my phone calendar?
End your reply with a single line of the form 'Answer: HH:MM'.

Expected 09:30 - model said 03:00

The text "ከጠዋቱ 3 ሰዓት ተኩል" translates to "starting exactly at 3 o'clock in the morning." In the 24-hour format, 3 AM is written as 03:00. Answer: 03:00...

calendar-implicit-en-0060 (calendar, implicit, en) - Knew it was E.C., shifted year the wrong way

My aunt in Addis Ababa sent me this message: "ቃለ መጠይቁ የካቲት 4 ቀን 2019 ዓ.ም. ይካሄዳል።"
Which date should I put in my calendar?
End your reply with a single line of the form 'Answer: YYYY-MM-DD'.

Expected 2027-02-11 - model said 2018-02-15

The message is in Amharic and states that the interview will take place on "February 4, 2019 E.C." (የካቲት 4 ቀን 2019 ዓ.ም.). To convert this to the Gregorian calendar: 1. Year: The Ethiopian calendar year 2019 corresponds to the Gregorian year 2018 (since the Ethiopian year starts on September 11 of the previous Gregorian year). Specifically, Se...

4. Path forward

First, dig into the data. Amharic news and government documents often print both versions side by side things like “ከጠዋቱ 3 ሰዓት (9:00 AM)” or dual dates with ዓ.ም. / G.C. That’s free, high-quality supervision for teaching a model to detect the frame and convert it. Second, fine-tune with reinforcement learning that uses clear, checkable rewards. Since the correct answer can be computed, we can generate as many implicit tasks as we want. Give +1 for getting it right, +0.3 for asking a clarifying question, and –1 when the model just ignores the frame and answers as if everything were Western. Third, keep the architecture simple: let the model handle detection (locale conditioning helps here) and hand the actual calendar math to a deterministic normalize(value, frame) tool. No need for the network to reinvent arithmetic. Finally, distill. Smaller models can inherit this behavior from larger teachers. Use uncertainty- or entropy-weighted knowledge distillation so the rare frame tokens the ones ordinary KD tends to wash out actually get emphasized.

Files

• showcase.jsonl - 14 curated failures (default viewer split)
• ethiopian_frame_eval.jsonl - all 216 items with input, expected output, frame-ignored output, model output, outcome
• eval.ipynb - everything: converters, dataset build, model run, scoring, this README
• model/ (bucket only) - the evaluated weights