Translate To

Translate to Language

Translate text into a specified target language while preserving placeholders, formatting, and tone.

Inputs

• source_text: The source text to translate (commonly English).
• targetlanguagecode: BCP 47 / ISO 15897 code (e.g. es, fr, de, zh-CN, pt-BR).
• targetlanguagename: Full language name as a hint for tone (e.g. Spanish (Spain)).
• context_key (optional): The i18n key (e.g. error.save_failed, button.delete) to inform tone and brevity.

Output

Return only the translated string.

Process

1. Identify placeholders

Extract every placeholder and record its position so you can verify it survives translation.

| Pattern | Example | Notes | |---------|---------|-------| | {{var}} | {{count}}, {{user.email}} | Angular/Mustache/i18n interpolation | | {var} | {username}, {0} | Generic | | ${var} | ${total} | Template literals | | %s, %d, %f | %s items | printf-style | | %{var} | %{count} | Ruby/Rails-style | | [[var]] | [[user]] | Custom brackets | | ` | , ` | Numbered tags |

2. Analyze formatting

• Capitalization: Title Case / Sentence case / UPPER / lower
• Punctuation: trailing ., !, ?, :, ellipsis (... vs …), label colon Name:
• HTML entities:  , &, <, >, "
• Special characters: \n, \t, escaped quotes
• Length: button labels and short labels must stay concise

3. Infer tone from context key

| Key pattern | Tone | |-------------|------| | error.* / *.error | Formal, clear | | warning.* | Cautionary | | button.* / *.button | Concise, imperative | | tooltip.* / *.tooltip | Helpful, brief | | title.* / *.title | Formal, prominent | | placeholder.* | Instructive, brief | | label.* | Concise, descriptive | | confirm.* | Question form | | success.* | Positive, affirming | | help.* / *.hint | Helpful, guiding |

4. Translate

Rules:

1. Preserve placeholders exactly — do not translate, modify, or alter their syntax.
2. Match the formality the locale expects for UI text (e.g. Spanish formal "usted", French "vous", German "Sie", Russian "вы", Japanese です/ます).
3. Keep similar length when reasonable, especially for buttons and labels.
4. Preserve capitalization style, trailing punctuation, HTML entities, and escapes.
5. Prefer natural target-language phrasing over literal translation.
6. Handle gender/plurals appropriately for the target language.

5. Verify

Before returning, confirm:

• All placeholders from source appear in translation unchanged.
• Placeholder order is grammatically logical for the target language.
• Capitalization style matches source.
• Trailing punctuation is preserved.
• HTML entities are preserved.
• No stray whitespace or formatting changes.

Language-Specific Notes

• Spanish: inverted ¿...?, ¡...!; accents required (sí, está).
• French: spaces before :, ;, !, ?; proper accents.
• German: capitalize all nouns; compound words common.
• Chinese (zh-CN, zh-TW): no spaces between characters; use Chinese punctuation (，。？！); keep Arabic numerals.
• Japanese: mix kanji/hiragana/katakana; Japanese punctuation (、。).
• Arabic / Hebrew: RTL — placeholder positions may differ grammatically (UI handles direction).
• Russian: use «...» quotation marks; respect case endings.

Examples

Basic

source_text: "Delete"
target: es / Spanish
→ "Eliminar"

With placeholder

source_text: "Hello {{name}}, welcome back!"
target: fr / French
context_key: "greeting.welcome"
→ "Bonjour {{name}}, bienvenue !"

Multiple placeholders

source_text: "{{count}} items selected"
target: de / German
→ "{{count}} Elemente ausgewählt"

Preserved punctuation/quoting

source_text: "Are you sure you want to delete \"{{name}}\"?"
target: es / Spanish
context_key: "confirm.delete"
→ "¿Está seguro de que desea eliminar \"{{name}}\"?"

Label with colon

source_text: "Email Address:"
target: fr / French
context_key: "label.email"
→ "Adresse e-mail :"

Common Pitfalls

1. Translating placeholders: {{name}} must stay {{name}}, not {{nombre}}.
2. Changing placeholder syntax: {{var}} must not become {var} or [[var]].
3. Losing punctuation: if source ends with ., translation should too.
4. Inconsistent formality within a string.
5. Over-translating loanwords/technical terms commonly used in English in the locale.
6. Breaking HTML entities.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: ericfitz
• Source: ericfitz/skills
• License: Apache-2.0

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.