integrate the skills
split the review skills into self- and other- the self- variant makes informational comments the other- variant makes nice comments Google docs is a failure
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# Translation Pitfalls — MPI Buddhist Texts
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Patterns found in CN→EN translation review. Add to this file as new patterns emerge.
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## Terminology conflation
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### 人生佛教/人间佛教 — distinct concepts
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人生佛教 (Taixu's "Buddhism for Human Life") and 人间佛教 (Yinshun's "Humanistic Buddhism")
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are distinct doctrinal positions in modern Chinese Buddhism. Do not conflate both into
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"Humanistic Buddhism." When the source uses 人生佛教, render as "Buddhism for Human Life"
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or "Human Life Buddhism." User may propose a deliberately non-standard rendering
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("Buddhism for daily lives") — that's their call. Don't unilaterally pick from
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the standard set without checking.
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### 心性论 → buddha-nature (WRONG)
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心性 (mind-nature) is broader than 佛性 (buddha-nature / tathāgatagarbha).
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When a text discusses 心性 in the context of Confucian self-cultivation or general
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Buddhist psychology, use "mind-nature" or "nature of mind." Reserve "buddha-nature"
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only when the text explicitly references tathāgatagarbha doctrine.
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### 恨 → resentment (WRONG)
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恨 means "hatred," not "resentment." In the triad 羡慕嫉妒恨 (envy, jealousy, hatred),
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the force is strong. "Resentment" is too mild.
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### 感悟 → conversant / heartfelt (WRONG)
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感悟 means experiential insight or realization. It is not intellectual familiarity
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("conversant") or emotional warmth ("heartfelt"). Render as "insight," "realization,"
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or "deep understanding."
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### 关爱/关怀 → compassion (WRONG)
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Chinese 关爱 and 关怀 mean "care" or "loving care." They are NOT 慈悲 (compassion / karuṇā).
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Conflating them obscures two distinct Buddhist concepts.
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Check every occurrence of "compassion" in a translation against the source:
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- If source is 关爱/关怀 → "care"
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- If source is 慈悲 → "compassion" (correct)
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- If source is 悬壶济世 → "compassionate mission" (correct — the healing spirit)
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### 生存层面 → making a living (WRONG)
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生存层面 = the existential/survival dimension. Not just earning wages.
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→ "survival-level needs" or "the level of basic existence"
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### 修学 → "practice" (drops study dimension)
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修学 combines 修 (practice/cultivation) and 学 (study/learning). Rendering only
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as "practice" loses the study dimension. Use "practice and study" or
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"cultivation and learning" — especially in 静心学堂/Dharma study contexts where
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the academic dimension is emphasized.
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### 信仰者 → "believers" (Christian connotation)
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信仰者 = "people of faith" but in Buddhist context, "believers" carries Christian
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overtones. Use "practitioners" or "adherents" to avoid the implication. Reserve
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"believers" for contexts where the source explicitly uses 信徒 or where the
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Christian parallel is the point.
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## Loss of Dharma meaning
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### 生生增上 → continuously elevate our life (INCOMPLETE)
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生生 = life after life (multi-life Buddhist perspective). The single-life rendering
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"continuously elevate our life" loses the Dharma meaning entirely.
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→ "continuously elevate our life, life after life"
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## Degree / register shifts
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### "tantamount to" drops 几乎
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几乎 = "almost." "tantamount to" = "is in fact." Dropping 几乎 strengthens the
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claim. Source "几乎等同于一次全球化运动" = "almost equivalent to a globalization
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movement," NOT "tantamount to a globalization movement."
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### "untenable" for 都是不行的 (overstates)
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都是不行的 = "is not acceptable / won't do." "Untenable" = "indefensible" or
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"cannot be maintained." Too strong. Use "impermissible" or "is not acceptable."
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### "monumental event" for 大事 (slight stretch)
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大事 = "a major event" or "an event of importance." "Monumental" is typically
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reserved for tasks, errors, or achievements (e.g. "monumental task,"
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"monumental mistake"). "Event of great importance" or "landmark event" is more
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idiomatic.
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### "perennial" for 永恒 (wrong register)
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永恒 = eternal/ultimate. "Perennial" = recurring (per year, per season). They
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are not synonyms. Use "eternal" or "ultimate."
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### 学部委员 → Member (UNDERSTATES)
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学部委员 is CASS's highest academic title, equivalent to "Academician."
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"Member" understates the prestige significantly. → "Academician" or
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"Member of the Academic Divisions."
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### 文明 → culture (WRONG)
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文明 is "civilization," not 文化 "culture." When a text discusses 文明传播
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(civilizational transmission), do not substitute "cultural transmission."
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### 教制建设 → reforming (ADDS CONNOTATION)
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教制建设 means "developing/building monastic institutions." Adding "reforming"
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introduces a connotation of fixing something broken that is not in the source.
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→ "developing monastic institutions" or "institutional development."
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### 一荣俱荣、一损俱损 → too loose
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This idiom has a conditional structure: "if one prospers, all prosper; if one
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suffers, all suffer." Rendering as "thrived together and suffered together"
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loses the mutual-dependence logic. → "shared prosperity and adversity alike"
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or "rose and fell together."
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### 成圣成贤 collapsing
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圣 (sage) and 贤 (worthy) are distinct Confucian categories. Collapsing both
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to "a sage" loses the distinction. → "sagehood and worthiness" or "a sage or worthy."
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### "must" overuse from 应当/倡导
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Source patterns 应当 (should), 倡导 (advocate/champion), 今后要 (going forward, should)
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often get rendered as "must" by reflex. "must" in English is a strong directive
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appropriate only for 一定要, 必须, 务必. Default to "should" or "ought to" for
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recommendations. A whole section may be 倡导 without 一定 anywhere — don't
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manufacture urgency the source doesn't have.
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### 文明 → culture (WRONG)
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文明 is "civilization," not 文化 "culture." When a text discusses 文明传播
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(civilizational transmission), do not substitute "cultural transmission."
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#### 因病返贫 → "back into poverty"
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"返贫" means becoming poor due to illness, not returning to previous poverty. Use "into poverty" or "driven into poverty."
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#### Diacritics: use DB form, not academic Sanskrit
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| Wrong | Right | Source |
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|---|---|---|
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| `Mahāsthāmaprāpta` | `Mahasthamaprapta` | 佛教术语 |
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| `Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra` | `Yogacarabhumi-Sastra` | 经论名 |
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| `Avalokiteśvara` | `Guanyin` | 佛教术语 |
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| `pravāraṇā` | `Pavarana` | BAICKZ |
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Exception: `Kṣitigarbha` — DoT定稿 uses diacritics, so keep them.
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When in doubt, search the DB and follow the highest-priority source. See dharma-translation skill `references/diacritics-convention.md`.
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返贫 = become poor (from a non-poor state) due to medical costs. "Back" implies
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the person was previously poor — not necessarily true. This is about medical bankruptcy.
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→ "into poverty" or "fall into poverty" (no "back")
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## Subject-shift calques
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When the source uses an abstract/system noun as the grammatical subject (佛教,
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文明, 宗教, 文化) and the target reflexively substitutes a more concrete
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agent (Buddhist practitioners, civilization-builders, religious people, etc.),
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the English is wrong: the source is *not* talking about people, it's talking
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about the system.
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**Pattern**: 佛教都被社会大众赋予期望 → EN drifts to "Buddhist practitioners
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are looked upon with hope." Wrong subject — source is 佛教, not 佛教徒. Right:
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"Buddhism is regarded with hope by the broader society."
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**Detection**: For each translated sentence, find the *grammatical subject*
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in the English and check it matches the *grammatical subject* in the Chinese.
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If the English subject is a concrete agent and the Chinese is an abstract
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system noun, it's a subject-shift calque.
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## Factual inconsistencies across paired descriptions
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When the same person, place, or thing is described in two different paragraphs
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(intro + later reference), check that *every* descriptor matches: title,
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affiliation, role, credentials. A translation can be factually inconsistent
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even when each individual sentence is correct in isolation.
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**Pattern**: Prof. Wei's credentials in paragraph 1: "Academician of the
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Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and research fellow at the
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Institute of World Religions." Paragraph 5 (same person, same source
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reference): "a member of the CASS academic committee and Director of the CASS
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Buddhist Research Center." Two different titles for the same CASS affiliation.
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One is right, the other is wrong.
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**Detection**: For each named person, build a dict {name → {credential:
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sentence_refs}} and check that all credentials in the dict match. Same
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institution or title can have different renderings in different paragraphs.
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## Calque checklist (subtle English calques of Chinese verbs)
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These are common Chinese-verb → English-verb pairs where the English word
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sounds natural in isolation but is a direct calque of the Chinese. They're
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easy to miss in a first-pass review because each one parses correctly:
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| Chinese verb | Wrong (calque) | Right (idiomatic) |
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|---|---|---|
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| 赋予 (entrust with) | "look to with hope" | "regard with hope" |
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| 得到 (obtain) | "draw forth" | "draw on" / "gain" |
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| 发挥 (bring into play) | "bring into full play" | "make the most of" |
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| 承担 (assume) | "shoulder" | "take on" |
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| 重视 | "attach importance to" | "value" / "emphasize" |
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| 体现 | "embody" / "reflect" | "show" / "demonstrate" (when abstract) |
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**Detection**: When the English uses an unusual verb that maps 1:1 to a
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Chinese word, and the Chinese word is a high-frequency academic verb (发挥,
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承担, 体现, 重视), check whether the English reads as a calque. A common
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smell: the English verb is "correct" but more formal/dramatic than the
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surrounding prose.
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## Tonal coherence inside a parallel list
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When a list of items in a section should have parallel structure (e.g. three
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"champion X, oppose Y" items; six "developing X, strengthening Y" items),
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check that the *verb choice* is consistent across the list. Inconsistency
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within a parallel structure is a strong signal of drift.
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**Pattern**: Section V lists "First, Buddhism should serve as... Second, it
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must serve as... Third, it must serve as..." Source has 应当/要做 for all
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three. The English should match: all three "should serve as" or all three
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"must serve as." Mixing is a tell.
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**Detection**: For each parallel-list section (First/Second/Third, etc.),
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extract the verb (or other repeated slot) and verify it's identical. Drift
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inside a parallel list is one of the easiest flow issues to catch
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mechanically — just look for variance.
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## Multi-pass review structure
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Translation review benefits from three distinct passes, run separately, each
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catching a different category of error:
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1. **Pass 1: terminology + consistency + line count** — fast, mechanical.
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Catches: 人生佛教/人间佛教 conflation, 修行/修学, 恨→resentment,
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paired inconsistencies (Buddhism vs Buddhist practitioners), missing
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content, wrong numerals.
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2. **Pass 2: mechanical/formatting** — em-dash convention, double punctuation,
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numbering mismatches, capitalisation typos, garbled text. Often skipped
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if the file "looks clean." This pass is what makes the file safe to
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publish; do it even when no content issues are obvious.
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3. **Pass 3: flow/tonal/calques** — *read the full English as a piece of
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prose*. Catch: dramatic verbs that read as calques ("draw forth,"
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"into full play," "shoulder"), intensifier drift ("profoundly important"
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× 3 in one section), consistency of "must"/"should" inside parallel
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lists, subject misattribution in calque. Often the user will prompt
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this pass with "are you sure it reads well?" or "do the words hang
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together?" Treat that prompt as a signal to re-read the whole English
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target, not just spot-check.
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Pass 3 in particular is the one that catches the *most embarrassing* errors
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— the ones where the English is grammatical and faithful but reads as
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"translationese." Don't skip it.
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## DoT定稿 term drift
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### 念死 → recollection of death (WRONG per DoT定稿)
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DoT定稿 has "Cultivating mindfulness of death" / 佛教术语 has "contemplating the
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impermanence of death". The established term is "mindfulness of death", not
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"recollection of death." → "mindfulness of death" / "death-mindfulness"
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### 三级修学 → Three-Level Study Program (WRONG per DoT定稿)
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DoT定稿 has "Three-Stage Practice." → "Three-Stage Practice"
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### 下士道/中士道/上士道
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DoT定稿: "Path for Persons of Small/Medium/Great Capacity" — not "path of the
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initial/middle/great scope."
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### 观音菩萨 → Avalokiteśvara (AVOID in MPI translations)
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佛教术语 has "Guanshiyin/Guanyin Bodhisattva." Use "Guanyin Bodhisattva."
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## Workflow pitfall
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### Translating before consulting terms DB
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Always search key terms BEFORE translating. The dharma-translation skill says to do
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this, but it's easy to skip. Use the CLI: `$MPI_PROJECT_ROOT/terms-search/search.py <query>`.
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Prioritize DoT定稿 > 内部特色词 > 佛教术语 > 经论名.
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