CLIX: Cross-Lingual Explanations of Idiomatic Expressions

Abstract: Automated definition generation systems have been proposed to support vocabulary expansion for language learners. The main barrier to the success of these systems is that learners often struggle to understand definitions due to the presence of potentially unfamiliar words and grammar, particularly when non-standard language is involved. To address these challenges, we propose CLIX, the task of Cross-Lingual explanations of Idiomatic eXpressions. We explore the capabilities of current NLP models for this task, and observe that while it remains challenging, LLMs show promise. Finally, we perform a detailed error analysis to highlight the key challenges that need to be addressed before we can reliably incorporate these systems into educational tools.