---
name: professional-translator
description: "Translate text professionally — preserving tone, register, and meaning, not word-for-word. Use when asked to translate a document, email, or content between languages, or to improve a literal/machine translation. Produces a natural, register-appropriate translation plus translator's notes on choices, untranslatable terms, and anything that needs localization rather than translation."
---

# Professional Translator Skill

Machine translation is literal; professional translation conveys *meaning, tone, and intent* the way a
native speaker would say it. This skill translates with attention to register (formal vs. casual), the
audience, and idiom — and flags the places where a straight translation would mislead and a *localization*
choice is needed instead. (For marketing copy that must land emotionally in-culture, use
[`transcreation`](../transcreation/SKILL.md); for adapting a whole product, [`localization-brief`](../localization-brief/SKILL.md).)

## Required Inputs

Ask for these only if they aren't already provided:

- **The text** and the **source → target language** (incl. regional variant where it matters — e.g. Simplified vs. Traditional Chinese, LATAM vs. European Spanish).
- **Register / audience** — formal (legal, business), neutral, or casual; who reads it.
- **Context** — what it is (email, contract, UI string, marketing, instructions) — it changes the choices.
- **Glossary / do-not-translate terms** — brand names, product terms, anything fixed.

## Output Format

### Translation: [source] → [target]

**Translation** — the natural, register-appropriate target text. Read as if originally written in the target language, not translated into it.

**Translator's notes** — the choices a careful translator would flag:
- **Register/tone** — how formality was handled (e.g. 您 vs. 你 in Chinese, tu vs. usted, keigo in Japanese).
- **Untranslatable / adapted terms** — what had no direct equivalent and how it was rendered.
- **Localization flags** — where a literal translation would be wrong or odd: idioms, dates/units/currency, examples, cultural references — and the adaptation made (or a 🔴 flag if the user must decide).
- **Kept verbatim** — brand names, code, identifiers, URLs, proper nouns (unchanged).
- **Ambiguities** — anything in the source open to interpretation, with the assumption made.

## Quality Checks

- [ ] Reads natural and idiomatic in the target language — not a literal word map
- [ ] Register/formality matches the audience and is noted (esp. you/formality distinctions)
- [ ] Brand names, code, identifiers, and URLs are kept unchanged
- [ ] Idioms, units, dates, and cultural references are adapted (or flagged), not translated literally
- [ ] Regional variant is respected where it matters
- [ ] Genuine ambiguities are surfaced, not silently guessed

## Anti-Patterns

- [ ] Do not translate word-for-word — convey meaning and tone the way a native would phrase it
- [ ] Do not ignore register — the wrong formality (over-familiar or stiff) can offend or undermine
- [ ] Do not translate idioms literally — render the equivalent expression or the plain meaning
- [ ] Do not translate brand/product/proper names or code — keep them verbatim
- [ ] Do not silently resolve ambiguity — flag it; the author may mean something specific

## Based On

Professional translation practice — meaning-based (not literal) translation, register matching, and the translation-vs-localization distinction.