Skip to content
MyDSHMy DSH Field Notes
中文
Independently maintained; not affiliated with DeepSeek. No association with mydsh.dev or other MyDSH sites.

All categories/Translation and localisation

Translation practice · Level Advanced · Translation Translation ZH-EN

Chinese to English: break sentences first

A long Chinese sentence becomes a tangled English one.

Prompt

First decide what the text does: inform, persuade or process. The same sentence translates differently. You translate function, not words.

Task: A long Chinese sentence becomes a tangled English one.

[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
   - purpose and reader
   - domain and terms
   - register
   - length
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.

[Go through each of these]
- split Chinese sentences into meaning units
- give each unit a subject and verb
- supply missing subjects or use passive
- make implicit logic explicit

[Process]
1. Confirm purpose, audience, venue
2. Fix terminology and proper nouns
3. Restructure per target-language habit
4. Flag what cannot be translated literally and needs the author
5. Check numbers, units, names

[Output]
Translation, glossary, list of uncertainties.

[Do not]
- No word-for-word rendering
- Never smooth away facts or qualifiers
- No inconsistent invented terminology
- Never present guesses as fact

What to state before it starts

Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.

  • purpose and reader
  • domain and terms
  • register
  • length

Go through each of these

Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.

  • split Chinese sentences into meaning units
  • give each unit a subject and verb
  • supply missing subjects or use passive
  • make implicit logic explicit