Translation & Localisation prompts

Translate this from [SOURCE LANGUAGE] to [TARGET LANGUAGE].

TEXT:
"""
[PASTE]
"""

WHAT IT IS: [CONTRACT / MARKETING / TECHNICAL DOC / EMAIL / UI TEXT / LITERARY]
AUDIENCE: [WHO READS THE TRANSLATION, WHERE]
REGISTER: [formal / neutral / casual]
TARGET VARIANT: [e.g. Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese]
PRIORITY: [literal accuracy / natural reading / persuasive effect]

Produce:

1. THE TRANSLATION.

2. TRANSLATION NOTES for every non-obvious choice:
   - Where a word has no direct equivalent, what you chose and what is lost
   - Idioms: what you did instead of translating literally
   - Register decisions, including formal/informal address where the target language distinguishes them (tú/usted, tu/vous, du/Sie). State which you used and why - this is often the most consequential choice in the whole translation.
   - Where the source is ambiguous and the target forces a choice (gender, number, definiteness, tense)

3. WHAT DOES NOT TRANSLATE - wordplay, cultural references, humour, connotation. For each: what it did in the source, and the options - substitute a local equivalent, explain it, or drop it. Say what you did.

4. FORMAT AND CONVENTION CHANGES - dates, numbers, currency, units, addresses, names, punctuation conventions (quotation marks and spacing differ by language).

5. TEXT EXPANSION - if this is for a UI or a fixed layout, note where the target text is significantly longer or shorter than the source. Translated text commonly runs 20-30% longer in some language pairs and breaks layouts.

6. WHAT NEEDS A HUMAN - anything where a mistranslation would carry real consequences: legal terms, medical or safety instructions, anything binding. Flag these plainly rather than translating them confidently.

7. BACK-TRANSLATION of any sentence where accuracy is critical, so I can check the meaning survived.

Do not produce a translation that is technically correct and reads as translated. If the priority is natural reading, prioritise it and say what you changed to get there.

Localise this for [TARGET MARKET].

CONTENT:
"""
[PASTE]
"""

SOURCE MARKET: [WHERE IT WAS WRITTEN FOR]
TARGET MARKET: [COUNTRY/REGION AND LANGUAGE]
WHAT IT IS: [marketing / product / support / legal / educational]
GOAL IN THE NEW MARKET: [WHAT IT SHOULD ACHIEVE]

Localisation is not translation. Assess and adapt:

1. EXAMPLES AND REFERENCES - brands, places, sports, holidays, public figures, historical events, TV and film references. Which do not land? What replaces each?

2. CULTURAL ASSUMPTIONS - assumptions about how people work, shop, pay, travel, or organise family life. Directness of communication style varies enormously and is the most common localisation failure: copy that reads as confident in one market reads as arrogant in another.

3. PRACTICAL CONVENTIONS - currency and price formatting, dates, measurement units, phone and address formats, paper sizes, name order, time formats, the working week.

4. LEGAL AND REGULATORY - claims that are permissible in one market and not another: health claims, comparative advertising, guarantees, data and privacy statements, required disclosures. Flag anything needing local legal review rather than adapting it yourself.

5. PAYMENT AND LOGISTICS - if relevant: payment methods people actually use there, delivery expectations, returns norms.

6. TONE - how formal, how direct, how much humour, how much self-promotion is acceptable.

7. VISUAL AND LAYOUT NOTES - text expansion, reading direction, colour associations, imagery that may not suit.

8. THE LOCALISED VERSION.

9. WHAT I CHANGED AND WHY - so a native speaker can review the decisions.

10. WHAT NEEDS A LOCAL PERSON - be explicit. There are things about a market that cannot be reasoned out from outside it, and a confident wrong answer is worse than a flag.

Do not simply translate. If the content fundamentally does not work in the target market, say so.

Review this translation.

SOURCE ([SOURCE LANGUAGE]):
"""
[PASTE]
"""

TRANSLATION ([TARGET LANGUAGE]):
"""
[PASTE]
"""

PURPOSE: [WHAT IT IS FOR]
AUDIENCE: [WHO READS IT]

Review and report as a table: Source text | Translation | Issue | Severity | Suggested fix.

Check for:
1. ACCURACY - meaning changed, added, or omitted. Severity critical for anything that alters an instruction, a number, a legal term, or a safety warning.
2. OMISSIONS - content present in the source and missing in the translation. Check systematically; these are easy to miss.
3. ADDITIONS - content in the translation that is not in the source.
4. FALSE FRIENDS - words that look like a cognate and mean something different.
5. LITERAL TRANSLATION - correct word-for-word, wrong in the target language. Idioms translated literally, source-language sentence structure preserved where the target would not use it.
6. REGISTER - too formal or too casual for the context. Check formal/informal address consistency throughout; inconsistency here is jarring and common.
7. CONSISTENCY - the same source term translated differently in different places. For technical content this is a serious problem.
8. NUMBERS, DATES, UNITS - transcription errors, unconverted units, date format ambiguity, decimal separator differences.
9. NAMES AND PROPER NOUNS - correctly handled, consistently.
10. NATURALNESS - does it read as originally written in the target language, or as a translation?

Then:
- CRITICAL ISSUES - anything that must be fixed before publication
- THE OVERALL VERDICT - publishable / needs revision / needs retranslation
- PATTERNS - recurring issues suggesting a systematic problem rather than isolated errors

Be specific. Quote both versions for every issue.

Translate these UI strings from [SOURCE] to [TARGET].

STRINGS:
"""
[PASTE - INCLUDE THE KEY/ID AND ANY CHARACTER LIMITS]
"""

PRODUCT: [WHAT IT IS]
USERS: [WHO]
PLATFORM: [web / iOS / Android / desktop]
TONE: [DESCRIPTION]

UI translation has constraints ordinary translation does not. For each string produce: key | source | translation | character count | notes.

Apply these rules:
1. CONTEXT IS MISSING - for every string where you cannot tell from the text alone what it does, flag [CONTEXT NEEDED: your question]. 'Open' as a button and 'Open' as a status need different translations in most languages, and guessing produces embarrassing errors.
2. LENGTH - flag any translation exceeding a stated character limit, and give a shorter alternative. Note where the target language is systematically longer.
3. CONSISTENCY - the same source term must translate the same way everywhere. Produce a glossary of recurring terms and their chosen translation.
4. PLACEHOLDERS - preserve every variable exactly. Note where the target language's word order requires the placeholder to move, and whether the string format supports that.
5. PLURALS - flag every string with a count. Languages have different plural rules, and a string built by concatenation will be wrong. Say which plural forms the target language needs.
6. GRAMMATICAL GENDER AND AGREEMENT - where a string inserts a variable whose gender affects surrounding words, flag it. This cannot be solved by translation alone and needs a code change.
7. CONCATENATION - flag any string that appears to be a sentence fragment assembled with others. These almost never translate correctly and should be restructured as full strings.
8. TERMINOLOGY - platform conventions matter. Use the standard target-language term for standard UI concepts rather than a literal translation.
9. TONE - button labels and error messages have conventions that differ by language. Note where a direct translation would be rude or oddly formal.

End with: THE STRINGS THAT NEED DEVELOPER CHANGES, not just translation.

I wrote this in [LANGUAGE], which is not my first language. Correct and improve it.

MY TEXT:
"""
[PASTE]
"""

MY FIRST LANGUAGE: [LANGUAGE]
WHAT IT IS FOR: [PURPOSE AND AUDIENCE]
REGISTER NEEDED: [formal / professional / casual]
MY LEVEL: [beginner / intermediate / advanced]

Produce:

1. THE CORRECTED VERSION - errors fixed, keeping my meaning and as much of my phrasing as is correct.

2. ERROR TABLE - Mine | Corrected | Type | Why. Types: grammar, word choice, word order, preposition, article, register, collocation, spelling.

3. FIRST-LANGUAGE INTERFERENCE - errors that come from my first language's structure. These are the ones I will keep making, so name the underlying pattern rather than just the instance.

4. WHAT WAS CORRECT BUT UNNATURAL - grammatically fine but not how a native speaker would say it. This is the hardest category to self-detect and the most valuable feedback at my level. Give the natural version.

5. COLLOCATIONS - where I used the wrong word pairing. These rarely appear in grammar books and are most of what makes writing sound foreign.

6. REGISTER CHECK - anything too formal or too casual for my stated purpose. Second-language writers commonly write too formally.

7. THE THREE PATTERNS to work on, ranked by how often they appeared.

8. THE POLISHED VERSION - if I want this to read as fluent rather than merely correct, the rewritten version. Kept separate from section 1 so I can see the difference between 'fixed' and 'native'.

Explain in [MY FIRST LANGUAGE or English - state which you want].

Do not simply rewrite everything. I want to learn, so show me what was wrong and why.

Help me write this message for a different business culture.

WHAT I WANT TO SAY: [THE MESSAGE]
MY BUSINESS CULTURE: [WHERE YOU ARE FROM / HOW YOU NORMALLY COMMUNICATE]
THEIR BUSINESS CULTURE: [COUNTRY/REGION]
RELATIONSHIP: [new contact / established / senior to me / junior / peer]
CHANNEL: [email / message / call follow-up / formal letter]
WHAT IS AT STAKE: [CONTEXT]
MY DRAFT: [PASTE, or 'none']

Produce:

1. WHAT DIFFERS between the two communication cultures, relevant to this message. Consider: directness, how disagreement and refusal are expressed, how much relationship-building precedes business, formality and titles, hierarchy and who is addressed, how commitments are phrased, how 'no' is conveyed, and expected response times.

2. WHERE MY DRAFT OR INTENT WOULD MISFIRE - specifically. Directness read as rudeness, indirectness read as evasion, familiarity read as disrespect, or an assumption about decision-making authority.

3. THE ADAPTED MESSAGE.

4. WHAT I CHANGED AND WHY - so I learn the pattern rather than just getting one message written.

5. HOW TO READ THEIR REPLY - what a polite decline looks like in their culture, what enthusiasm looks like, and what silence is likely to mean. This is as important as sending the right message and is almost always omitted.

6. NAMES AND TITLES - how to address them correctly, including name order and whether titles are expected.

7. WHAT NOT TO DO - the specific mistakes people from my culture commonly make with theirs.

8. THE CAVEAT - business cultures vary by company, generation and individual as much as by country. Note where you are describing a generalisation, and say that an individual may not match it.

Do not produce cultural stereotypes. Describe communication conventions, hedge appropriately, and say where you are uncertain.

Build a translation glossary.

SOURCE LANGUAGE: [LANGUAGE]
TARGET LANGUAGE(S): [LANGUAGES]
OUR CONTENT:
"""
[PASTE REPRESENTATIVE CONTENT]
"""
INDUSTRY: [SECTOR]
BRAND TERMS THAT MUST NOT BE TRANSLATED: [PRODUCT NAMES, TRADEMARKS]
EXISTING TRANSLATIONS: [PASTE, if any]

Produce:

1. TERM EXTRACTION - every term needing a consistent translation. Group as:
   - BRAND AND PRODUCT - do not translate. List them explicitly so translators do not.
   - DOMAIN TERMS - industry vocabulary with an established target-language equivalent
   - PRODUCT CONCEPTS - things we named ourselves. These are the hard ones: translate, transliterate, or keep in source? Recommend one per term with reasoning.
   - UI ELEMENTS - buttons, labels, statuses, where platform conventions apply
   - COMMON PHRASES - recurring sentences worth standardising

2. THE GLOSSARY TABLE - Source term | Part of speech | Definition/context | Target translation | Do not use | Notes
   The 'do not use' column is the important one: the plausible wrong translations to rule out, especially where the obvious cognate is wrong.

3. AMBIGUOUS SOURCE TERMS - words used with more than one meaning in our content. Each meaning needs its own entry. Flag these; they are the main source of inconsistency.

4. TERMS THAT DO NOT TRANSLATE CLEANLY - where the target language has no equivalent, or splits one source concept into several, or merges several into one. For each, the recommended approach.

5. STYLE DECISIONS to apply consistently: formal or informal address, whether we use the imperative for instructions, capitalisation conventions, how we handle English loanwords.

6. INCONSISTENCIES IN OUR EXISTING TRANSLATIONS - if I provided any, where they disagree, and which to standardise on.

7. MAINTENANCE - who owns this, how a new term gets added, and how translators query an entry.

The glossary is only useful if it is decided before translation starts. Flag anything needing a decision from us rather than guessing.