Core translation technique for Buddhist/Dharma content. Conventions (djot format,
terms DB query, workflows, output format) are in AGENTS.md.
## Source context
Before translating, understand the source's format and delivery context. Is it a transcript of an oral talk, a book excerpt, a guided meditation script, a Q&A, a written article, or another genre? The register shapes the translation. If the context is not clear from the file path or source content, ask the user before proceeding.
## Mindfulness Bell Corpus
English Buddhist prose — register/style reference for translation.
- **PDFs + index**: `~/meta/www.files/public/The Mindfulness Bell/` — 6 issues (MB92–MB97, 2023–2026), `index.yaml` lists all articles by author/title/page
| Personal narrative | Mick McEvoy (MB94 "Touching the True Nature") | First-person, confessional, borrowed Dharma vocabulary, vernacular |
| Editorial | Brother Pháp Lưu (MB94 welcome letter) | Polished but warm, conceptual framing, "we" address |
Quick-find in index: Thầy talks → `"Thích Nhất Hạnh"` + page ≤ 10; teachings → `"Sister"` or `"Brother"`; narratives → first-page articles by non-monastics; lineage → `"Patriarch"` or `"ancestor"`.
## Translation Principles
1.**Terms**: Either keep Sanskrit w/ narrative explanation (bodhisattva, Māra) OR coin new English (interbeing, inter-are). Avoid clunky calques.
2.**Cultural bridging**: Add bridges for Western readers. A Chinese text mentioning 孔子 can stay; explain the function. Đoan Nghiêm's "like Jesus" is the pattern.
3.**Tone**: Chinese Dharma texts are typically more formal than English equivalents. Decide consciously: keep formality or warm up (Thầy style).
4.**Voice**: Direct address ("you"), concrete images, and oral rhythm make Dharma land in English. Abstract noun chains (common in Chinese→English translationese) kill it.
5.**Sutra quotes**: Use standard English Buddhist idiom. Check terse-idiom conventions (e.g., Diamond Sutra "lives" not "bodies").
## Pitfalls
### Pre-flight accuracy check
Before delivering a translation, run through the structured accuracy/readability
taxonomy in `../translation-review/references/common-issues-taxonomy.md`.
Catching these before review saves iteration cycles:
`endeavor to` → `try to`; `in order to` → `to`. These texts are lectures
and conversations, not journal articles.
5. **Register match**. Dharma talks and dialogues should sound spoken —
contractions, direct address, concrete images. If the English reads like a
paper abstract, warm it up. Check against the MB corpus registers for the
target genre.
6. **Review-specific calques**. For *人生百问*-style Q&A, check the pattern
tables in `../translation-review/references/translation-pitfalls.md` for recurring
stiff calques ("keen on," "more ultimate," "choice difficulty," etc.) and
the Buddhist-term register notes in `../translation-review/references/buddhist-terminology.md`.
Do NOT apply these mechanically — each is a judgment call. A passive may be
correct when the agent is unknown; a nominalization may be the right technical
term. The goal is natural English that matches the source's register, not a
formulaic rewrite.
## Baker’s Equivalence Framework
Mona Baker, *In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation* (2nd ed., Routledge, 2011), organizes translation decisions by levels of equivalence. The framework below is adapted for this project’s Chinese → English Buddhist/Dharma texts. It is a decision aid, not a substitute for source-context judgment or the terms DB.
Baker’s central premise: **equivalence is always relative**. No translation reproduces every aspect of meaning. A responsible translator identifies which level of meaning is focal in a given context and chooses the least-lossy strategy for that level.
| Level | What it covers | Relevance to this project |
Baker distinguishes four types of lexical meaning. For Buddhist/Dharma texts, all four are in play:
1. **Propositional meaning**: the factual, dictionary sense. Check against the terms DB; keep it consistent.
2. **Expressive meaning**: the speaker’s attitude or evaluation. Chinese Dharma texts are often more formal, reverential, or urgent than English equivalents. Decide consciously whether to warm the tone or keep the formality.
3. **Presupposed meaning**: collocational and selectional restrictions. A Chinese verb may collocate with 心 (“mind/heart”) in ways that English does not. Do not force English collocations to match Chinese ones.
4. **Evoked meaning**: dialect/register. A guided meditation script, a Dharma talk, and a lineage history each evoke a different register. Match the target register, not just the source words.
### Non-equivalence strategies at word level
When Chinese has no ready English equivalent, use one of the attested strategies below. The choice depends on whether the term is focal, repeated, or culturally loaded.
- **More general word (superordinate)**. 打坐 → “meditation” or “sitting meditation” when the precise posture is not focal.
- **More neutral/less expressive word**. 殊胜 → “special” or “rare” when the source’s religious intensity cannot be carried naturally.
- **Cultural substitution**. Replace a culture-specific item with a target-culture equivalent only when the project explicitly allows adaptation (rare here; default is preserve and explain).
- **Loan word + explanation**. Keep Sanskrit or Chinese terms such as *bodhisattva*, *karma*, *śūnyatā* with narrative explanation on first use. This is the normal Buddhist-text convention.
- **Paraphrase using a related word**. When the Chinese term is semantically complex, unpack it with a phrase built from a superordinate.
- **Paraphrase using unrelated words**. When no related word exists, unpack the concept directly: 随喜 → “rejoice in others’ merit” on first use, then “rejoice” or *anu-moda* where appropriate.
- **Omission**. Drop a word only when it is not focal and keeping it would distract the reader. Note this in `{% %}` comments.
- **Illustration**. For posture or ritual objects, rely on the context; do not add explanatory illustrations the source does not contain.
### Above-word equivalence: collocation and idioms
Chinese and English have different collocational ranges. A word-for-word match often produces *translationese*.
- Identify the Chinese word’s typical collocates (e.g., 发 with 心, 愿, 菩提心). Do not preserve an English collocate just because it translates one component literally.
- 成语, 惯用语, and set phrases are rarely translatable by a matching idiom. Prefer: (a) an English idiom with similar meaning and compatible register, (b) transparent paraphrase, or (c) omission if the idiom is ornamental.
- Be alert to **marked collocations** in the source: unusual combinations used for emphasis. Do not normalize them automatically; reproduce the emphasis if the target language allows it.
### Grammatical equivalence
Chinese and English grammatical categories do not map one-to-one. Common pitfalls:
- **Number**: Chinese nouns are not marked for number. Do not insert plural/singular markers where the source leaves number unspecified unless the context demands it.
- **Tense/aspect**: Chinese verbs do not inflect for tense. Use English tense and aspect to convey time and viewpoint, not to mirror every Chinese particle. Be consistent with narrative viewpoint (past for stories, present for timeless Dharma statements).
- **Voice**: English passives are common; Chinese uses passive-like structures differently. Avoid importing Chinese-style “bei” passives or agentless constructions into English. Convert to active when the agent is recoverable and the English register allows.
- **Word order / topic-prominence**: Chinese is topic-prominent; English is subject-prominent. Do not reproduce Chinese topic-comment structures with “As for X …” unless the emphasis is intentional. Reconstruct the sentence around a clear English subject and predicate.
- **Pronouns / person**: Chinese often omits subjects; English usually requires them. Supply “we,” “you,” or a concrete noun as appropriate to the register. Maintain the speaker–hearer relationship (e.g., a teacher addressing students) rather than defaulting to abstract third person.
### Textual equivalence: theme, information, and cohesion
A translation must read as a text in English, not as a string of accurate sentences.
- **Theme–rheme / given–new**: Put known or orienting information at the beginning of the sentence and new, important information at the end. Chinese can delay the subject; English readers expect the subject early.
- **End-weight**: Place heavier, more complex phrases toward the end of the English sentence. Split long Chinese sentences rather than front-loading them.
- **Cohesion**: maintain reference chains (pronouns, synonyms, superordinates) so the reader can trace participants across sentences. Do not over-repeat a Buddhist term where a pronoun or a brief synonym is natural, and do not under-specify where English would use a full noun phrase for clarity.
- **Conjunction**: Chinese may rely on parataxis or zero conjunction; English often needs explicit connectors. Add them when the logical relation would otherwise be unclear, but do not over-connect and make the text sound like a logic textbook.
- **Lexical cohesion**: use consistent terminology and strategic repetition to hold the text together. Avoid introducing synonyms just for variety if the source uses the same term repeatedly.
### Pragmatic equivalence: coherence and implicature
The same words can imply different things in different cultural contexts.
- **Coherence**: ensure the translation makes sense as a unit of Dharma discourse. If a Chinese passage assumes background knowledge (a sutra story, a lineage figure, a ritual), add the minimum cultural bridge needed for the target reader.
- **Implicature / Grice’s maxims**: Speakers obey (and sometimes flout) quantity, quality, relation, and manner. A Chinese text may imply humility, authority, or gentle reproof through structure rather than lexical choice. Check whether the English reader will recover the same implicature; if not, adjust wording or add a brief bridge.
- **Speaker intention**: In Dharma talks, the speaker’s purpose—teaching, admonition, consolation, inspiration—must survive the translation. When the English sounds correct but emotionally flat, the pragmatic level has been lost.
## Quality Gates (Before Declaring Done)
Run this self-check before you hand off a first-pass translation. The goal is to
catch the most expensive errors while they are still cheap to fix. For the full
post-translation review workflows, load `translation-review` (self mode for your own
translations, other mode for peer review).
### Accuracy
- [ ] **Line parity**: source and target line counts match exactly.
- [ ] **No missing content**: every Chinese paragraph, quote, poem, or rhetorical
climax has a corresponding English rendering.
- [ ] **No overtranslation**: no parenthetical expansions or explanations not in
the source.
- [ ] **Terminology**: key Buddhist terms checked against the MPI terms DB
(`terms-search` skill). Consistent within the file.
- [ ] **Source faithfulness**: no concepts added, no details dropped.
### Readability
- [ ] **Active voice**: abstract/subjectless passives converted to "we" or a
The DB uses simplified romanization. DoT定稿 is the authority — if it uses diacritics for a term, follow it. Otherwise strip them.
Pitfall: academic/pedantic diacritics (`Mahāsthāmaprāpta`, `Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra`, `Avalokiteśvara`) are common in general knowledge but wrong per MPI conventions.
When source material arrives as `.docx.md` (pandoc-converted from docx), convert to `.dj` for translation workflows.
## Splitting combined articles
If a single markdown file contains multiple articles (common when docx has two talks in one file), split at the article boundary before converting. Use `sed` by line number:
```bash
sed -n '1,218p' combined.md > a1.md
sed -n '220,282p' combined.md > a2.md
```
## TOC stripping
Pandoc docx→md produces a markdown TOC with tab-separated page numbers:
```markdown
[一、对佛教的感悟\t1](#一、对佛教的感悟)
[二、佛教与人类文明\t5](#二、佛教与人类文明)
```
Strip before conversion:
```bash
sed -i '/^\[.*\t.*\](#.*)$/d' input.md
```
Or in Python: skip lines matching `line.startswith("[") and "\t" in line and "](#" in line`.
## Heading anchor cleanup
Pandoc's docx→md conversion adds `{#heading-id}` anchors to every heading:
```markdown
## 1．安宁疗护 {#1．安宁疗护}
```
These must be stripped before markdown→djot conversion, otherwise pandoc's djot writer leaves stray `{#...}` lines in the output:
When the source is a guided meditation script, exercise guide, posture instruction,
or breathing practice (rather than a Dharma talk, sutra commentary, or teaching text),
use a lighter workflow than the full dharma-translation pipeline.
## Register
Default to warm, direct instructional voice (Thầy-adjacent):
- Second-person address ("you")
- Concrete images, sensory details
- Oral rhythm, short sentences
- Present tense, imperative mood
MB corpus consultation is NOT needed for register — this content type has its own
well-established English conventions (yoga/meditation instructional voice).
## Terms
Terms DB lookup for Buddhist-mindfulness vocabulary is useful but limited to key terms:
- 正念 → mindfulness
- 觉知 → awareness
- 无我 → depends on context: "non-self" for philosophical/Dharma content; "selflessly" for embodied/movement instruction where the sense is no separate controller imposing on the action
- 中道 → Middle Way
- 丹田 → dantian (keep as-is; well-known in meditation/qigong)
Context-sensitive terms:
- 心 (xīn): in meditation/movement contexts it often means "mind/attention" not emotional "heart." 持心 means holding the mind with focused attention, not holding with emotion.
- 念 (niàn): mindfulness/attention/recollection — context between these.
- Buddhist philosophical terms (无我, 空, 缘起) in non-philosophical contexts (movement instruction, body scans) may need practical/concrete translations rather than doctrinal ones.
Still create 对照.dj as usual. See comparison file format in this skill.
## Pitfalls
- **Don't add formatting the source doesn't have**: sub-section labels using `【】` in Chinese should become plain `[label]` in English, not `*[label]*` or `**[label]**`. Match the source's formatting level exactly.
- **`**text**` is Markdown, not Djot**: Djot emphasis uses single asterisks (`*text*`). Never use double asterisks in `.dj` files.
- **心 ≠ heart by default**: in meditation/movement contexts, 持心 = holding the mind with attention, not holding with emotion. Translate based on context, not dictionary defaults.
body from both sources, outputs to `/tmp/` for side-by-side diffing.
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