translate-post

name	translate-post
description	Use when translating a blog post between Chinese and English, when user says "翻译", "translate", or asks to create a Chinese/English version of an article

Translate Blog Post

Translate a blog post between Chinese and English, creating the corresponding language file with proper front matter and natural prose.

File Convention

Language	Filename	Example URL
Chinese	index.md	/zh/post/...
English	index.en.md	/en/post/...

Both files live in the same post directory (e.g., content/post/2025-05-05-grow-together/).

Workflow

1. Identify source: Read the existing file to determine the source language
   • Only index.md exists → source is Chinese, create index.en.md
   • Only index.en.md exists → source is English, create index.md
   • Both exist → inform user, ask which to update
2. Translate front matter (see rules below)
3. Translate body (see quality guidelines below)
4. Write the target file
5. Fix quotes: Run uv run scripts/fix_quotes.py on both the source file and the translated file. This normalizes quotation marks per content: English/ASCII content inside quotes → straight "", Chinese content inside quotes → curly ""
6. Build and verify: Run hugo to confirm no errors

Front Matter Rules

Keep unchanged:

• slug — must be identical so Hugo links the translation pair
• date
• originalLang — always reflects the original writing language, not the current file's language
• categories
• tags (may add relevant tags in the target language if appropriate)

Translate:

• title — translate naturally, not literally

Author name mapping:

• Chinese: author: 谭显英
• English: author: Xianying Tan

Example: Chinese original → English translation

Source index.md:

---
title: 一起长大
author: 谭显英
date: '2025-05-05'
slug: grow-together
originalLang: zh
tags:
  - life
---

Target index.en.md:

---
title: Growing Together
author: Xianying Tan
date: '2025-05-05'
slug: grow-together
originalLang: zh
tags:
  - life
---

Note: originalLang: zh stays zh in both files — this tells the template system which language was the original, so the AI translation notice appears only on the translated version.

Translation Quality Guidelines

Voice and tone:

• Preserve the author's personal voice — this is a personal blog, not corporate copy
• Match the register: casual essays stay casual, technical posts stay precise
• The author's Chinese writing is literary and reflective; English translations should feel equally natural and eloquent, not stilted

Prose quality:

• Translate meaning and intent, NOT word-by-word
• Restructure sentences to sound natural in the target language
• Chinese tends toward parallel structures and four-character idioms — convert these into idiomatic English equivalents rather than literal translations
• English tends toward shorter sentences — when translating to Chinese, combine where natural

Technical content:

• Keep code blocks, command examples, and technical terms unchanged
• Translate surrounding explanations naturally
• Keep library/tool names in their original form (e.g., "blogdown", "Hugo", "RStudio")

What NOT to add:

• Do NOT add translator notes or commentary in the article body
• Do NOT add "本文由 AI 辅助翻译" in the body — this is handled automatically by the template
• Do NOT change the meaning or add/remove content

Translation Notice (Automatic)

The template (layouts/_default/single.html) automatically shows:

• On Chinese translation of English original: "本文由 AI 辅助翻译，原文为英文"
• On English translation of Chinese original: "Translated with AI assistance, originally written in Chinese"

No manual action needed — this is driven by originalLang vs the page's language.