# Localization Review > Make copy read like it was written in the target language, not translated into it — translate intent, flag the phrasing that is technically correct and socially wrong, and keep a glossary so the product does not get renamed twice. Use this for "translate this", "localize our onboarding/docs/support replies", "does this read right in German", "review this translation", "why did our French users find this rude", tone and register checks, untranslatable jokes and idioms, or setting up a term glossary. Also use when copy is going to multiple locales and someone needs to know which parts will not travel. - Skill: `5dive-ai/localization-review` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add 5dive-ai/localization-review` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/5dive-ai/localization-review/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: 5dive-ai (https://skillmd.com/u/5dive-ai) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/5dive-ai/localization-review --- # Localization review Translation is the easy half. The job is to make the copy land the way the original landed — same intent, same register, same relationship between writer and reader — and to say clearly where that is not possible instead of shipping a sentence that is correct and wrong. ## The one rule that governs everything **Translate the intent, then flag where the intent does not travel.** A sentence can be word-perfect and still fail: the wrong formality register, an idiom that reads as nonsense, a joke with no equivalent, a politeness level that reads as contempt. Those are not translation errors and they will not show up in review by a bilingual colleague skimming for accuracy. Name them explicitly, every time, with what you did instead. ## Procedure 1. **Establish register before translating a word.** Who is speaking to whom, and in what relationship? Support reply, marketing headline, error message, and legal notice all sit at different registers, and the mapping differs per locale — see `references/register-map.md`. Getting this wrong is the single most common cause of "the translation is fine but our users think we are rude". 2. **Read the whole piece first.** Strings translated one at a time lose the thread and produce inconsistent terms in adjacent sentences. 3. **Check the glossary before inventing a term.** Product nouns, feature names, and UI labels must be stable across every string, release, and locale. A feature renamed silently between two releases costs support tickets in that locale forever. 4. **Translate for the reader, not the source syntax.** Sentence structure, length, and punctuation should be native. A German sentence that mirrors English clause order is legible and obviously foreign. 5. **Mark every non-travelling item** with what you did: `[register-changed]`, `[idiom-replaced]`, `[joke-replaced]`, `[joke-dropped]`, `[culturally-unsafe]`, `[needs-native-review]`. The tag is for the human deciding whether to ship it. 6. **Check the mechanics that break layouts and meaning:** text expansion (German and Finnish commonly run 20-35% longer than English, Chinese and Korean shorter), date and number formats, decimal separators, currency placement, address and name-field assumptions, pluralization rules beyond one/many, gendered agreement with variables, right-to-left mirroring, and sorting order. 7. **Never ship a joke untested.** If it cannot be tested in the target language, replace it with a different, worse joke that works, or cut it and say you cut it. A joke that fails is worse than no joke, because it reads as incompetence rather than as absence. 8. **Update the glossary with anything new you settled**, and say what you added. ## What to flag, with examples of the class - **Formality mismatch.** Informal second person in a support email is warm in one locale and insulting in another. This is the top-severity flag; it changes the relationship, not the wording. - **Idioms and metaphors.** "Circle back", "low-hanging fruit", "ballpark". Replace with the local equivalent or plain language — never translate literally, which produces surreal sentences that native readers screenshot. - **Humour, wordplay, rhyme, alliteration.** Assume none of it travels; earn it back. - **Culturally loaded specifics.** Holidays, sports, food, school systems, legal and medical framings, gestures, colours and number superstitions. - **Names and honorifics.** Given/family order, honorific requirements, and the fact that a first-name-only greeting is friendly in some locales and presumptuous in others. - **Legal and regulated copy.** Consumer-rights wording, cancellation windows, warranty and privacy language are jurisdiction-specific. Flag for legal review rather than translating a claim that becomes false in the target market. ## Hard rules - **Never invent a fluency you do not have.** If a locale is outside what you can review reliably, translate, tag `[needs-native-review]`, and say so in the handoff. - **Never soften a warning, error, or safety message to sound nicer.** Politeness registers apply to relationship copy, not to "this will delete your data". - **Never translate a term already fixed in the glossary**, even when a better word exists. Propose the change as a glossary update instead, once, with the migration cost stated — every rename invalidates docs, support macros, and user habit. - **Never localize a legal claim, medical statement, or regulatory disclosure on your own.** - **Do not machine-translate and present it as reviewed.** Say which parts had a real pass. - **Keep placeholders, variables, escapes and markup byte-identical.** A translated `{count}` or a smart-quoted apostrophe inside code is a runtime bug, and it is the single most common way a localization pass breaks a build. ## Worked example Source string, a support reply template, English: ``` Hey! Just wanted to check in — did you get a chance to look at that invoice? Let me know if anything's unclear and I'll sort it out. Thanks! ``` German pass: ``` Sehr geehrte Frau Weber, haben Sie die Rechnung bereits erhalten? Bei Fragen melden Sie sich gern, ich kläre das für Sie. Mit freundlichen Grüßen ``` Flags returned with it: ``` [register-changed] SEVERITY HIGH — source uses informal 'you' and a first-name-free greeting. In a German billing context that reads as presumptuous, not friendly. Switched to Sie + salutation. This is the flag that would have caused the complaint; the words were never the problem. [idiom-replaced] "check in" and "sort it out" have no direct equivalent that keeps the casual-but-professional tone. Replaced with plain statements. Warmth now comes from "gern", which is where German carries it. [culturally-unsafe] dropped the exclamation mark and "Thanks!" — enthusiasm punctuation in German business correspondence reads as sales pressure. [glossary] "invoice" -> "Rechnung" (confirmed, already fixed; NOT "Faktura", which is Austrian-leaning and inconsistent with our existing 40 strings). [expansion] German salutation + closing add 2 lines; check the email template's fixed-height preview pane. [needs-native-review] no — reviewed. ``` Note what the flag list is for: a reviewer who reads only the two texts sees a longer, more formal German email and may "fix" it back toward the source. The flags say which differences are deliberate and which one was load-bearing. ## Handoff Return: the translated copy, the flag list with severities, glossary additions or conflicts, mechanical issues (expansion, formats, placeholders), and an explicit statement of which locales had a real review versus which need a native pass. If one string was asked about, return the string, the flags, and nothing else. See `references/register-map.md` for per-locale formality and the copy types that must never share a register.