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All categories/Translation and localisation

Translation practice · Level Advanced · Translation Technical Docs

Technical docs: no ambiguous steps

Steps that fail when followed after translation.

Prompt

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

Task: Steps that fail when followed after translation.

[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:
   - product and version
   - reader level
   - UI glossary
   - format
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.

[Go through each of these]
- one action per sentence, verb first
- UI names match the product
- flag ambiguous source text for the author
- check numbers, units and order

[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.

  • product and version
  • reader level
  • UI glossary
  • format

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.

  • one action per sentence, verb first
  • UI names match the product
  • flag ambiguous source text for the author
  • check numbers, units and order