Initial toolkit: scripts, references, skills, and term database
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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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| 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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## Patterns from 人生百问 review (translation-review findings)
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The review of *人生百问* surfaced a set of recurring calques, register
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mismatches, and Buddhist-term choices that keep reappearing in MPI
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CN→EN work. Treat these as a supplemental checklist after the main
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translation-pitfalls list.
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### Stiff / formal calques to soften
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| Source pattern | Stiff / literal rendering | Smoother options |
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|---|---|---|
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| 热衷于 / 很热衷 | "keen on" | "eager to," "enthusiastically pursuing" |
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| 善用理性 | "use reason skillfully" | "use reason well," "use reason wisely" |
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| 随缘 | "responding to conditions" | "in harmony with conditions" (when it flows better) |
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| 人云亦云 | "serve as reference" | "provide guidance," "serve as a reference" |
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| 引起共鸣 | "arouse resonance" | "resonate," "strike a chord" |
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| 强势而偏执 | "forceful and opinionated" | "forceful and dogmatic," "domineering and inflexible" |
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| 执着外境 | "cling to all sorts of external pursuits" | "cling to all sorts of external conditions" |
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| 一时兴起 | "spur-of-the-moment impulse" | "spur-of-the-moment idea" |
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| 大龄青年 | "older unmarried young people" | "older singles," "unmarried adults" |
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| 更受欢迎 | "more welcome" | "more well-liked," "more welcomed by others" |
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| 想起来很急，做起来又不急 | "feel urgent but do not act urgently" | "urgent in thought but not in deed" |
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| 随大流 / 大众化的 | "popular" | "mass-oriented," "public," "for the general public" |
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| 养生之道 | "wisdom culture" | "wisdom tradition," "culture of wisdom" |
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| 以此作为标准 | "take X as the only standard" | "make X the only standard" (when the sentence is top-heavy) |
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### 究竟 / 终极 / 更高层次
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| Source | Awkward | Preferred |
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|---|---|---|
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| 更究竟 | "more ultimate" | "more complete," "more profound," "higher" |
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| 更究竟的成功 | "a more ultimate success" | "a more complete success," "a higher success" |
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In conversational Q&A, 究竟 often reads better as "complete" or "profound"
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than as the technical "ultimate." Reserve "ultimate" for explicit doctrinal
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discussions of 究竟谛 / ultimate truth.
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### Buddhist term register
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| Source | Issue | Preferred guidance |
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|---|---|---|
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| 大自在 | "great freedom" loses the "ease" nuance | "great freedom and ease" |
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| 开启智慧 | "opened up boundless wisdom" is odd | "awakened," "brought forth," "unfolded" |
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| 迷惑 (as affliction) | "confusion" is too generic | "delusion" (in Buddhist contexts) |
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| 惑业 | "confusion and karma" | "delusion and karma" (check terms DB) |
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| 善知识 | "great wise teachers" is redundant | "great teachers," "wise teachers," "authentic teachers" |
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| 皈依三宝 | "take refuge hastily" | "take refuge lightly," "take refuge without being ready" |
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| 尽未来际 | "for all future time" is literal | "for all future lives," "throughout all future time" |
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| 患得患失 | "worried about personal gains and losses" | "anxious about gain and loss" |
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| religious community | vague | "Buddhist community," "Sangha" |
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| 报身 | "enjoyment body" vs "reward body" | Verify target convention; MPI often prefers "reward body" |
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| 化身 | "transformation body" is common | Verify against target convention |
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| 等流果 | "continuative result" | Standard: "result of equal outflow," "correlative effect" |
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| 四力 (忏悔) | "power of eradication / remedy" | Use standard four powers terminology: remorse, support, restraint, refuge/reliance |
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| 末法 | "Dharma-ending age" / "Age of Dharma Decline" | Check terms DB; avoid inventing new renderings |
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| 暇满 | "well-endowed human form" | Standard: "leisure and endowment," "precious human life" |
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| 定课 | "fixed chanting session" | "daily practice," "daily recitation" (context-dependent) |
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| 八步骤三种禅修 | "Eight Steps and Three Kinds of Meditation" | DoT定稿: "Eight Steps and Three Types of Meditation" |
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| 功德 | "merit and virtue" (overused) | "merit" or "virtue" depending on context |
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| 福田 | "field of blessing" | Standard: "field of merit/blessing" |
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| 止观 | "calm abiding and special insight" | Or "śamatha-vipaśyanā"; avoid inventing new compounds |
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| 皈依 / 发心 / 戒律 / 正见 | gerund lists | Noun forms in catalogues: "refuge, aspiration, precepts, right view" |
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| 凡夫心 | "ordinary mind" | "mind of an ordinary being" (avoid Chan "ordinary mind" ambiguity) |
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| 加持 | "empowers one another" | "supports and blesses one another" (retain religious nuance) |
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| 登地菩萨 | "attained the grounds" | Standard rendering |
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| 弟子相 | "marks of a disciple" | Standard rendering |
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| 无缘大慈、同体大悲 | — | "unconditional great compassion and the great sympathy of seeing others as oneself" |
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| 人成即佛成 | — | "When a Human Is Perfected, Buddhahood Is Perfected" |
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| 人生佛教 | — | "Buddhism for Human Life" (do not conflate with 人间佛教 / Humanistic Buddhism) |
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| 三级修学 | — | DoT定稿: "Three-Stage Practice" |
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| 同喜班 | — | "Tongxi Class" (MPI convention; verify if glossary requires translation) |
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### Idioms and set phrases
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| Source | Literal / awkward | Preferred |
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|---|---|---|
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| 妄念纷飞 / 妄想纷飞 | "delusive thoughts still fly about" / "random thoughts fly about" | "delusions run wild," "wandering thoughts arise" |
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| 望尘莫及 | "outdo animals by far" (wrong direction) | "animals cannot compare," "are left far behind" |
|
||||
| 脚踏两条船 / 骑墙 | "straddling two boats" | "riding two boats," "trying to walk two paths" |
|
||||
| 选择困难症 | "choice difficulty" | "decision paralysis," "choice paralysis" |
|
||||
| 树欲静而风不止 | "the tree wishing stillness while the wind keeps blowing" | "the tree may crave stillness, but the wind will not cease" |
|
||||
| 磨刀不误砍柴工 | — | "sharpen the ax before cutting wood" (standard) |
|
||||
| 泥菩萨过江 | "clay bodhisattva" | Allude to the idiom; may need explanatory note |
|
||||
| 鄙视链 | "contempt chains" | Loan-translation is acceptable; keep if context is clear |
|
||||
| 十年浩劫 | "decade of catastrophe" | International readers may need a gloss |
|
||||
| 红尘滚滚 | "rolling red dust" | Acceptable in Buddhist register; do not soften |
|
||||
| 因上努力，果上随缘 | — | "work hard on the causes and let the results unfold as they may" |
|
||||
| 朝不保夕 | "we may not last until evening" | "life is precarious" |
|
||||
| 本末倒置 | — | "put the cart before the horse" |
|
||||
| 润物细无声 | — | "quiet, pervasive influence, like rain soaking into the earth unnoticed" |
|
||||
| 有口无心 | — | "with their mouths but not their hearts" |
|
||||
| 人非圣贤，孰能无过 | "To err is human" | Acceptable, but note it loses the Buddhist register |
|
||||
| Standard Buddhist idiom | — | Always prefer established English Buddhist idiom when one exists (e.g. Diamond Sutra "lives" not "bodies") |
|
||||
|
||||
### Sentence structure / rhythm
|
||||
|
||||
| Pattern | Problem | Fix |
|
||||
|---|---|---|
|
||||
| 3+ clause sentences | Can't be read in one breath | Split at natural breaks, especially after "world" or "Dharma" |
|
||||
| Top-heavy sentences | Main clause arrives too late | Move the main clause forward |
|
||||
| "is it not too late to X" | Inverted clause is awkward | "it is not too late to X" |
|
||||
| "patterned, standardized" | "patterned" is odd in English | "structured, standardized" or "model-based, standardized" |
|
||||
| "way of management" | awkward collocation | "approach to management," "style of governance" |
|
||||
| "correction of X through correcting Y" | repetitive | "transform X by correcting Y" |
|
||||
| "special circumstances are encountered" | passive/abstract | "special circumstances may create an exception" |
|
||||
| "formed from the Buddha's wisdom and merit" | mechanical | "arises from," "embodied wisdom and merit" |
|
||||
| "with every sound entering the ears" | flat idiom | "with every syllable clearly heard" |
|
||||
| "influenced by the liberation of individuality" | wrong collocation | "emancipation of the individual," "individual liberation" |
|
||||
| "the optimization of life" | technical-sounding | "flourishing of life," "growth in life" |
|
||||
| "right-livelihood occupation" | redundant | "right livelihood" |
|
||||
| "when time is used more valuably" | awkward adverb | "when time is used more wisely" |
|
||||
| "doing great things" | OK | Keep plain; do not overtranslate 做大事 |
|
||||
| "speak merely to show off your own cleverness" | misses idiom | 逞口舌之快 → "speak for the thrill of it," "indulge in sharp talk" |
|
||||
| "the power of eradication... the power of remedy" | non-standard | Use standard four powers terminology |
|
||||
| "pincer attack from within and without" | too militaristic in pastoral context | "pressure from within and without," "assault from both sides" |
|
||||
| "stalemate" | OK but possibly cold | "stuck place," "impasse" in spiritual contexts |
|
||||
| "persevere in one sutra" | loses metaphor | "go deeply into one sutra" |
|
||||
| "muddle-headedly" | rare adverb | "in a muddled way," "without understanding" |
|
||||
| "thoroughly applied" | slightly off | "when proficiency develops" |
|
||||
| "Using relics to check seems a little too late" | OK but flat | "Using relics as a measure seems rather late in the day" |
|
||||
| "unknowable mysticism" | 玄学 ≠ mysticism | "unknowable mystery" |
|
||||
| "reliance relationship" | awkward | "teacher-student relationship" |
|
||||
| "every place becomes a place of practice" | repetitive | "everywhere becomes a field of practice" |
|
||||
| "keeping an ordinary mind when things go well and still keeping an ordinary mind when things go badly" | wordy | "keeping an ordinary mind in both good times and bad" |
|
||||
| "ordinary, lax, and indulgent mind" | acceptable but loose | "ordinary mind of laxity and indulgence" |
|
||||
|
||||
### Register: spoken Q&A vs. written Dharma
|
||||
|
||||
*人生百问* is conversational Q&A. Keep the English warm and direct:
|
||||
|
||||
| Stiff / written | Conversational |
|
||||
|---|---|
|
||||
| "I do not think so necessarily." | "Not necessarily." / "I don't think so." |
|
||||
| "bustle about for liberation" | "rush about," "busy themselves" |
|
||||
| "starting a family is for liberation from singlehood" | "liberation from being single" |
|
||||
| "Seen only from the surface" | "On the surface," "From a surface view" |
|
||||
| "If one is liberated, how can these dreams be realized?" | "...how can these dreams still be realized?" |
|
||||
| "I deeply know that..." | "I know full well that..." |
|
||||
| "For yourself, you must..." | "First, for yourself..." / "Personally, you must..." |
|
||||
| "I believe that the external conditions we attract will also change." | "the conditions we draw to ourselves will also change" |
|
||||
|
||||
### Parallelism and grammar fixes
|
||||
|
||||
| Issue | Example | Fix |
|
||||
|---|---|---|
|
||||
| Gerund/infinitive mismatch | "drawing near to wise teachers and to rely on them" | "draw near to wise teachers and rely on them" |
|
||||
| Missing "still" | "how can these dreams be realized?" | "how can these dreams still be realized?" |
|
||||
| Mixed singular/plural | "the largest debt, not all of them" | "the largest debt, not every debt" |
|
||||
| Redundant compound | "sharp and keen faculties" | "sharp faculties" or "keen faculties" |
|
||||
| "disorder" as verb | "'nao' is to disorder" | "'nao' is to disturb" |
|
||||
|
||||
### Meta-pattern: when the review produces `review-comments.dj`
|
||||
|
||||
After a translation-review pass, scan the resulting
|
||||
`review-comments.dj` for **recurring patterns** and add them to this file
|
||||
and to `buddhist-terminology.md`. The review of *人生百问* began as a
|
||||
single article checklist and became a reusable pattern library; future
|
||||
reviews should do the same.
|
||||
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user