Translate

Translate Skill

Use this skill when asked to translate.

Key Principles

• The source language is always English.
• Identify the target language. If the target language is not specified, ask the user.
• Preserve the original formatting, structure, and markup.
• Keep placeholders unchanged — only translate human-readable text.
• Maintain the tone and style of the original (formal, informal, technical).

Guidelines

Translating .po files:

• The .po files are located in the src/nsupdate/locale directory.
• Follow the standard gettext format and only fill in msgstr entries.
• Never change the msgid entries.
• When asked to translate missing strings, only process the strings with currently empty msgstr entries.
• After any edits to a .po file, always validate and compile it:
  1. Validate: msgfmt --check-format -o /dev/null <path/to/file.po>
  2. Compile: msgfmt -o <path/to/file.mo> <path/to/file.po> (output .mo in the same directory as the .po file)
  3. Validate the compiled .mo file: msgunfmt <path/to/file.mo> | msgfmt --check-format -o /dev/null -

Quality:

• Prefer natural, fluent translations over literal word-for-word translations.
• For ambiguous terms, add a brief translator's note as a comment if appropriate.
• Always check the glossaries/<TARGET_LANGUAGE>.md file to produce a consistent translation.
• If the text contains domain-specific jargon (e.g., DNS, networking), use the accepted terminology in the target language.

Scripts:

• scripts/find_missing.py <language_code> — finds all entries with empty msgstr in a .po file for the given language. Use it to identify which strings still need translation.