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.
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
Read references/research_digest.md.
Read references/quality_standard.md.
Read references/workflow.md.
Create metadata/book_specific_translation_research.md with templates/book_specific_research_prompt.md.
Create metadata/style_profile.md with templates/style_profile_prompt.md.
If the user provides lawful private benchmark excerpts, evaluate them with templates/private_benchmark_compare_prompt.md.
Run pretranslation trials with templates/pretranslation_trial_prompt.md.
Run the sample test described in tests/benchmark_protocol.md and templates/sample_translation_test_prompt.md.
Only after pretranslation and sample tests pass, translate chapters with templates/chapter_translation_prompt.md.
Revise failed chapters with templates/revision_prompt.md.
Use skills/expert-translation-quality/SKILL.md during chapter translation, chapter controls, review, reader-feedback fixes, and final artifact review when expert-level prose, context-dependent word choice, translation-stage polysemy handling, or downstream polysemy back-checking matters.
Audit image-bearing word choices with templates/image_word_audit_prompt.md.
Gate every chapter with templates/chapter_quality_gate_prompt.md.
Score every final chapter with templates/evaluation_rubric.md.
When a recurring translation-quality defect family is found, use skills/translation-quality-defect-families/SKILL.md, close the family in the current book, and merge reusable lessons into that skill.
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.
Polysemous or context-dependent source wording must be actively handled during translation when local context can resolve it, then revisited after downstream context is available when needed. A smooth but wrong word sense is a blocking mistranslation.
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.
If a review finds a recurring quality pattern, do not only fix the sampled sentence. Classify the defect family, audit similar cases with low-token methods first, and update skills/translation-quality-defect-families/SKILL.md with reusable lessons.
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.
qa/chapter_controls/ records expert_translation_skill_used: true, expert_level_review_status: "PASS", polysemy_translation_stage_review: "PASS", polysemy_context_review: "PASS", and polysemy_unresolved_count: 0.
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.
Any discovered translation-quality defect family has book-local evidence, confirmed fixes or exceptions, and a reusable merged lesson in skills/translation-quality-defect-families/SKILL.md.
Expert Translation Quality / 专家级译文质量
Translation, chapter controls, independent review, random spot-checks, final artifact review, private-use artifact review, and reader-feedback fixes must use skills/expert-translation-quality/SKILL.md when expert-level prose, context-dependent word choice, translation-stage polysemy handling, or downstream polysemy back-checking matters. Recurring concrete defects still belong in skills/translation-quality-defect-families/SKILL.md.
