diff --git a/skills/translation-review/references/translation-pitfalls.md b/skills/translation-review/references/translation-pitfalls.md index f3fd4c1..07169f0 100644 --- a/skills/translation-review/references/translation-pitfalls.md +++ b/skills/translation-review/references/translation-pitfalls.md @@ -153,6 +153,107 @@ When in doubt, search the DB and follow the highest-priority source. See dharma- the person was previously poor — not necessarily true. This is about medical bankruptcy. → "into poverty" or "fall into poverty" (no "back") +## Subject-shift calques + +When the source uses an abstract/system noun as the grammatical subject (佛教, +文明, 宗教, 文化) and the target reflexively substitutes a more concrete +agent (Buddhist practitioners, civilization-builders, religious people, etc.), +the English is wrong: the source is *not* talking about people, it's talking +about the system. + +**Pattern**: 佛教都被社会大众赋予期望 → EN drifts to "Buddhist practitioners +are looked upon with hope." Wrong subject — source is 佛教, not 佛教徒. Right: +"Buddhism is regarded with hope by the broader society." + +**Detection**: For each translated sentence, find the *grammatical subject* +in the English and check it matches the *grammatical subject* in the Chinese. +If the English subject is a concrete agent and the Chinese is an abstract +system noun, it's a subject-shift calque. + +## Factual inconsistencies across paired descriptions + +When the same person, place, or thing is described in two different paragraphs +(intro + later reference), check that *every* descriptor matches: title, +affiliation, role, credentials. A translation can be factually inconsistent +even when each individual sentence is correct in isolation. + +**Pattern**: Prof. Wei's credentials in paragraph 1: "Academician of the +Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and research fellow at the +Institute of World Religions." Paragraph 5 (same person, same source +reference): "a member of the CASS academic committee and Director of the CASS +Buddhist Research Center." Two different titles for the same CASS affiliation. +One is right, the other is wrong. + +**Detection**: For each named person, build a dict {name → {credential: +sentence_refs}} and check that all credentials in the dict match. Same +institution or title can have different renderings in different paragraphs. + +## Calque checklist (subtle English calques of Chinese verbs) + +These are common Chinese-verb → English-verb pairs where the English word +sounds natural in isolation but is a direct calque of the Chinese. They're +easy to miss in a first-pass review because each one parses correctly: + +| Chinese verb | Wrong (calque) | Right (idiomatic) | +|---|---|---| +| 赋予 (entrust with) | "look to with hope" | "regard with hope" | +| 得到 (obtain) | "draw forth" | "draw on" / "gain" | +| 发挥 (bring into play) | "bring into full play" | "make the most of" | +| 承担 (assume) | "shoulder" | "take on" | +| 重视 | "attach importance to" | "value" / "emphasize" | +| 体现 | "embody" / "reflect" | "show" / "demonstrate" (when abstract) | + +**Detection**: When the English uses an unusual verb that maps 1:1 to a +Chinese word, and the Chinese word is a high-frequency academic verb (发挥, +承担, 体现, 重视), check whether the English reads as a calque. A common +smell: the English verb is "correct" but more formal/dramatic than the +surrounding prose. + +## Tonal coherence inside a parallel list + +When a list of items in a section should have parallel structure (e.g. three +"champion X, oppose Y" items; six "developing X, strengthening Y" items), +check that the *verb choice* is consistent across the list. Inconsistency +within a parallel structure is a strong signal of drift. + +**Pattern**: Section V lists "First, Buddhism should serve as... Second, it +must serve as... Third, it must serve as..." Source has 应当/要做 for all +three. The English should match: all three "should serve as" or all three +"must serve as." Mixing is a tell. + +**Detection**: For each parallel-list section (First/Second/Third, etc.), +extract the verb (or other repeated slot) and verify it's identical. Drift +inside a parallel list is one of the easiest flow issues to catch +mechanically — just look for variance. + +## Multi-pass review structure + +Translation review benefits from three distinct passes, run separately, each +catching a different category of error: + +1. **Pass 1: terminology + consistency + line count** — fast, mechanical. + Catches: 人生佛教/人间佛教 conflation, 修行/修学, 恨→resentment, + paired inconsistencies (Buddhism vs Buddhist practitioners), missing + content, wrong numerals. + +2. **Pass 2: mechanical/formatting** — em-dash convention, double punctuation, + numbering mismatches, capitalisation typos, garbled text. Often skipped + if the file "looks clean." This pass is what makes the file safe to + publish; do it even when no content issues are obvious. + +3. **Pass 3: flow/tonal/calques** — *read the full English as a piece of + prose*. Catch: dramatic verbs that read as calques ("draw forth," + "into full play," "shoulder"), intensifier drift ("profoundly important" + × 3 in one section), consistency of "must"/"should" inside parallel + lists, subject misattribution in calque. Often the user will prompt + this pass with "are you sure it reads well?" or "do the words hang + together?" Treat that prompt as a signal to re-read the whole English + target, not just spot-check. + +Pass 3 in particular is the one that catches the *most embarrassing* errors +— the ones where the English is grammatical and faithful but reads as +"translationese." Don't skip it. + ## DoT定稿 term drift ### 念死 → recollection of death (WRONG per DoT定稿)