translation-files/skills/self-review/references/translation-pitfalls.md

Translation Pitfalls — MPI Buddhist Texts

Patterns found in CN→EN translation review. Add to this file as new patterns emerge.

Terminology conflation

人生佛教/人间佛教 — distinct concepts

人生佛教 (Taixu's "Buddhism for Human Life") and 人间佛教 (Yinshun's "Humanistic Buddhism") are distinct doctrinal positions in modern Chinese Buddhism. Do not conflate both into "Humanistic Buddhism." When the source uses 人生佛教, render as "Buddhism for Human Life" or "Human Life Buddhism." User may propose a deliberately non-standard rendering ("Buddhism for daily lives") — that's their call. Don't unilaterally pick from the standard set without checking.

心性论 → buddha-nature (WRONG)

心性 (mind-nature) is broader than 佛性 (buddha-nature / tathāgatagarbha). When a text discusses 心性 in the context of Confucian self-cultivation or general Buddhist psychology, use "mind-nature" or "nature of mind." Reserve "buddha-nature" only when the text explicitly references tathāgatagarbha doctrine.

恨 → resentment (WRONG)

恨 means "hatred," not "resentment." In the triad 羡慕嫉妒恨 (envy, jealousy, hatred), the force is strong. "Resentment" is too mild.

感悟 → conversant / heartfelt (WRONG)

感悟 means experiential insight or realization. It is not intellectual familiarity ("conversant") or emotional warmth ("heartfelt"). Render as "insight," "realization," or "deep understanding."

关爱/关怀 → compassion (WRONG)

Chinese 关爱 and 关怀 mean "care" or "loving care." They are NOT 慈悲 (compassion / karuṇā). Conflating them obscures two distinct Buddhist concepts.

Check every occurrence of "compassion" in a translation against the source:

• If source is 关爱/关怀 → "care"
• If source is 慈悲 → "compassion" (correct)
• If source is 悬壶济世 → "compassionate mission" (correct — the healing spirit)

生存层面 → making a living (WRONG)

生存层面 = the existential/survival dimension. Not just earning wages. → "survival-level needs" or "the level of basic existence"

修学 → "practice" (drops study dimension)

修学 combines 修 (practice/cultivation) and 学 (study/learning). Rendering only as "practice" loses the study dimension. Use "practice and study" or "cultivation and learning" — especially in 静心学堂/Dharma study contexts where the academic dimension is emphasized.

信仰者 → "believers" (Christian connotation)

信仰者 = "people of faith" but in Buddhist context, "believers" carries Christian overtones. Use "practitioners" or "adherents" to avoid the implication. Reserve "believers" for contexts where the source explicitly uses 信徒 or where the Christian parallel is the point.

Loss of Dharma meaning

生生增上 → continuously elevate our life (INCOMPLETE)

生生 = life after life (multi-life Buddhist perspective). The single-life rendering "continuously elevate our life" loses the Dharma meaning entirely. → "continuously elevate our life, life after life"

Degree / register shifts

"tantamount to" drops 几乎

几乎 = "almost." "tantamount to" = "is in fact." Dropping 几乎 strengthens the claim. Source "几乎等同于一次全球化运动" = "almost equivalent to a globalization movement," NOT "tantamount to a globalization movement."

"untenable" for 都是不行的 (overstates)

都是不行的 = "is not acceptable / won't do." "Untenable" = "indefensible" or "cannot be maintained." Too strong. Use "impermissible" or "is not acceptable."

"monumental event" for 大事 (slight stretch)

大事 = "a major event" or "an event of importance." "Monumental" is typically reserved for tasks, errors, or achievements (e.g. "monumental task," "monumental mistake"). "Event of great importance" or "landmark event" is more idiomatic.

"perennial" for 永恒 (wrong register)

永恒 = eternal/ultimate. "Perennial" = recurring (per year, per season). They are not synonyms. Use "eternal" or "ultimate."

学部委员 → Member (UNDERSTATES)

学部委员 is CASS's highest academic title, equivalent to "Academician." "Member" understates the prestige significantly. → "Academician" or "Member of the Academic Divisions."

文明 → culture (WRONG)

文明 is "civilization," not 文化 "culture." When a text discusses 文明传播 (civilizational transmission), do not substitute "cultural transmission."

教制建设 → reforming (ADDS CONNOTATION)

教制建设 means "developing/building monastic institutions." Adding "reforming" introduces a connotation of fixing something broken that is not in the source. → "developing monastic institutions" or "institutional development."

一荣俱荣、一损俱损 → too loose

This idiom has a conditional structure: "if one prospers, all prosper; if one suffers, all suffer." Rendering as "thrived together and suffered together" loses the mutual-dependence logic. → "shared prosperity and adversity alike" or "rose and fell together."

成圣成贤 collapsing

圣 (sage) and 贤 (worthy) are distinct Confucian categories. Collapsing both to "a sage" loses the distinction. → "sagehood and worthiness" or "a sage or worthy."

"must" overuse from 应当/倡导

Source patterns 应当 (should), 倡导 (advocate/champion), 今后要 (going forward, should) often get rendered as "must" by reflex. "must" in English is a strong directive appropriate only for 一定要, 必须, 务必. Default to "should" or "ought to" for recommendations. A whole section may be 倡导 without 一定 anywhere — don't manufacture urgency the source doesn't have.

文明 → culture (WRONG)

文明 is "civilization," not 文化 "culture." When a text discusses 文明传播 (civilizational transmission), do not substitute "cultural transmission."

因病返贫 → "back into poverty"

"返贫" means becoming poor due to illness, not returning to previous poverty. Use "into poverty" or "driven into poverty."

Diacritics: use DB form, not academic Sanskrit

Wrong	Right	Source
Mahāsthāmaprāpta	Mahasthamaprapta	佛教术语
Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra	Yogacarabhumi-Sastra	经论名
Avalokiteśvara	Guanyin	佛教术语
pravāraṇā	Pavarana	BAICKZ

Exception: Kṣitigarbha — DoT定稿 uses diacritics, so keep them. When in doubt, search the DB and follow the highest-priority source. See dharma-translation skill references/diacritics-convention.md.

返贫 = become poor (from a non-poor state) due to medical costs. "Back" implies 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)

DoT定稿 has "Cultivating mindfulness of death" / 佛教术语 has "contemplating the impermanence of death". The established term is "mindfulness of death", not "recollection of death." → "mindfulness of death" / "death-mindfulness"

三级修学 → Three-Level Study Program (WRONG per DoT定稿)

DoT定稿 has "Three-Stage Practice." → "Three-Stage Practice"

下士道/中士道/上士道

DoT定稿: "Path for Persons of Small/Medium/Great Capacity" — not "path of the initial/middle/great scope."

观音菩萨 → Avalokiteśvara (AVOID in MPI translations)

佛教术语 has "Guanshiyin/Guanyin Bodhisattva." Use "Guanyin Bodhisattva."

Workflow pitfall

Translating before consulting terms DB

Always search key terms BEFORE translating. The dharma-translation skill says to do this, but it's easy to skip. Use the CLI: $MPI_PROJECT_ROOT/terms-search/search.py <query>. Prioritize DoT定稿 > 内部特色词 > 佛教术语 > 经论名.