Prompt like a local: How language and slang change your AI art results
If you’ve ever tried generating AI art in London and thought, “Wait, why does this look like Brooklyn?” — you’re not alone.
It turns out, the words you use in your prompt matter a lot. But not just the subject—the language, regional slang, and cultural context you use can completely change how an image is interpreted by the model.
Because most AI art tools have been trained heavily on English-language internet data (with a Western tilt), even subtle differences in phrasing or location can shift the vibe from NYC to Tokyo in a sentence.
Let’s break it down with a simple example…
🌎 The same prompt, five ways
We started with this prompt in U.S. English:
Prompt: A woman in a red blazer pushes a baby in a stroller on a busy city sidewalk on a rainy day.
Now let’s tweak that using other languages and region-specific slang:
🇬🇧 UK English:
Prompt: A woman in a red blazer pushes a baby in a pram down a rainy high street in a bustling city.
🇫🇷 French:
Prompt: Une femme en blazer rouge pousse un landau sous la pluie sur un trottoir animé.
🇯🇵 Japanese:
Prompt: 赤いブレザーを着た女性が雨の中、にぎやかな都市の歩道でベビーカーを押している。
🇦🇺 Australian English:
Prompt: A woman in a red blazer pushes a baby in a pram along a wet footpath in a lively city centre.
Each of these variations may seem minor, but AI models trained on regional data will interpret them in totally different ways. Even replacing "stroller" with "pram" can conjure up a different design, color palette, or setting. A "sidewalk" becomes a "footpath," and suddenly you're not in Chicago anymore—you’re in Melbourne.
🌐 Why this matters
This is especially important if you’re working with Midjourney, DALL·E, or Stable Diffusion and want a specific cultural tone, visual style, or location. Try prompting in:
The native language of the place you want to reflect
Local slang terms or idioms
Descriptors tied to real-world geography or fashion
You'll often get more accurate or vibe-specific results—and sometimes even uncover unexpected artistic styles baked into the training data.
🤖 Final thoughts
Prompting is a little bit of writing, a little bit of world-building, and a whole lot of weird magic. But the more you understand how language and culture influence output, the more control you have.
So go ahead: say “pram” instead of “stroller,” “flat” instead of “apartment,” or try the whole thing in Japanese. You might just find your perfect image hiding in another dialect.
Stay curious, and prompt globally. 🌍✨
