Translation

Step 2: Translation Approach

Choose the right approach for the content type:

Step 3: Translate

Translation principles:

• Translate meaning, not words — convey the intent, not a word-for-word mapping
• Preserve tone and register — formal stays formal, casual stays casual
• Handle idioms properly — find equivalent expressions in the target language, don't translate literally
• Maintain formatting — preserve bullet points, headers, bold/italic, links
• Keep proper nouns as-is unless there's a standard localized form
• Preserve technical terms — use established translations from the field, don't invent new ones

Formality — The T-V Distinction

Many languages force you to pick a formality register for "you." Get this wrong and the whole translation reads off. Ask the user or default to formal for business.

Locale Data — Don't Guess, Use CLDR

Dates, numbers, and currencies follow Unicode CLDR (Common Locale Data Repository — what every OS and browser uses). Don't hardcode formats; look them up per locale:

In Python: babel.dates.format_date(d, locale='de_DE') handles this correctly.

Text Expansion — Plan for It

English → other languages changes length. Critical for UI strings, button labels, and anything with character limits:

UI rule of thumb: design with 35% horizontal slack. Tell the user if their 12-char button label becomes 22 chars in German.

Tooling — When to Use What

QA — Back-Translation

For high-stakes content (legal, medical, safety warnings): translate source→target, then independently translate target→source, then diff semantically against the original. Divergences flag ambiguity or drift. Don't use the same model/prompt for both directions — you'll get confirmation bias. This catches errors but is NOT proof of correctness; it's a smell test.

Glossary Injection

For multi-document projects, build a termbase (JSON of {source_term: target_term}) and inject it into your system prompt. Forces consistency across documents — "dashboard" shouldn't be tablero on page 1 and panel de control on page 5.

Best Practices

1. Specify the locale, not just the language — es-MX ≠ es-ES ≠ es-AR (vocabulary, formality, vos vs tú)
2. Flag transcreation — when you significantly adapt rather than translate (slogans, jokes), tell the user what you changed and why
3. Preserve placeholders exactly — {name}, %s, {{count}} must survive unchanged and in grammatically valid positions
4. Pluralization is hard — English has 2 forms (1 item / 2 items); Russian has 3; Arabic has 6. CLDR plural rules define these.
5. RTL is layout, not translation — Arabic/Hebrew/Persian text is RTL but numbers and embedded Latin stay LTR. Flag it; don't try to "fix" it in the text.

Limitations

• AI translation may miss subtle cultural nuances a native speaker would catch
• Legal and medical translations should be reviewed by a certified professional
• Poetry, humor, and wordplay may lose their effect — note this when it happens
• Cannot verify pronunciation for audio/speech contexts
• Some specialized terminology may not have established translations