Pre-training is like the education students receive in school. Just as teachers train students in a broad range of subjects, a model is pre-trained on a vast amount of data, learning general knowledge. This foundational learning requires significant effort and resources, similar to the years of schooling and the dedication of many teachers.

Fine-tuning occurs after students graduate from school and choose a specialized field, such as medicine, engineering, or law. In this phase, they receive targeted training in their chosen domain, much like how a pre-trained model is fine-tuned for specific tasks. Before this specialization, the students (or the model) already have a solid foundation from their broad education (or pre-training).

Transfer learning is like someone who already knows how to play one musical instrument, such as the flute, learning to play another instrument more easily. The skills and knowledge gained in one area help in mastering a new, related area. Similarly, in transfer learning, a model that has learned one task can adapt more quickly to a new, but related, task.

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Sreeni