zh-hans-target-quality

name	zh-hans-target-quality
description	Use when translating public-domain or licensed books into Simplified Chinese, regardless of source language. Provides target-language quality rules for AI-assisted translation, including Chinese readability, style research, chapter gates, benchmark testing, literary revision, and EPUB-ready final text checks.

Simplified Chinese Target Quality / 简体中文目标语言质量

Use this skill before translating full chapters. Do not begin batch translation until a sample passes the quality gate.

Required Workflow

1. Read references/research_digest.md.
2. Read references/quality_standard.md.
3. Read references/workflow.md.
4. Create metadata/book_specific_translation_research.md with templates/book_specific_research_prompt.md.
5. Create metadata/style_profile.md with templates/style_profile_prompt.md.
6. If the user provides lawful private benchmark excerpts, evaluate them with templates/private_benchmark_compare_prompt.md.
7. Run pretranslation trials with templates/pretranslation_trial_prompt.md.
8. Run the sample test described in tests/benchmark_protocol.md and templates/sample_translation_test_prompt.md.
9. Only after pretranslation and sample tests pass, translate chapters with templates/chapter_translation_prompt.md.
10. Revise failed chapters with templates/revision_prompt.md.
11. Audit image-bearing word choices with templates/image_word_audit_prompt.md.
12. Gate every chapter with templates/chapter_quality_gate_prompt.md.
13. Score every final chapter with templates/evaluation_rubric.md.

Hard Rules

• Never optimize only for literal correspondence.
• Never keep English syntax when natural Chinese would say it differently.
• Never preserve a metaphor word-for-word when it becomes obscure or ugly in Chinese; preserve the effect instead.
• Never use copyrighted reference translations as source material unless the user provides lawful excerpts for private evaluation. Do not store long copyrighted excerpts in the project.
• If a sentence sounds like a translation, rewrite it unless the stiffness is intentional in the original.
• During the translation call itself, use a slim prompt and output only the translation. Do not ask the model to write QA, release notes, lint records, or workflow explanations in the same call.
• Natural Chinese is the first hard constraint in translation. Faithful but breathless long sentences, English clause skeletons, or compliance-looking prose that does not read like Chinese fail the gate.
• If a passage is historically sensitive, keep the historical fact and tone, but add translator notes instead of silently modernizing.
• Do not translate a chapter without a book-level style profile and a passing sample-test report.
• In body text, prefer accurate image-bearing words over flat explanatory words when the source is symbolic, scenic, physical, or memorable.
• Do not start batch chapter translation without a passing qa/pretranslation/pretranslation_report.md.

Quality Gate

A chapter can move to chapters/final/ only if:

• No major meaning errors.
• No missing paragraph.
• No unresolved proper noun or technical term inconsistency.
• Readability score is at least 4/5.
• Literary/narrative effect score is at least 4/5.
• Chinese-only readability score is at least 4/5 before source calibration.
• A 20-sentence read-aloud sample has at most one clearly awkward sentence, and no key sentence is breathless.
• The reviewer cannot point to a sentence that feels mechanically translated.
• A gate report exists under qa/gates/ and says PASS.
• qa/samples/sample_test_report.md exists and says PASS.
• qa/pretranslation/pretranslation_report.md exists and says PASS.
• An imagery audit exists under qa/imagery/ for chapters with symbolic, scenic, physical, or memorable language.