Bilingual Content

Bilingual Content Generation

Objectives

• Generate bilingual markdown from structured content
• Preserve original text with translation placeholders
• Handle code blocks, images, and formatting correctly
• Support incremental translation workflow

Key Instructions

1. Input Format

Expect structured JSON data with sections:

{
  "title": "Article Title",
  "sections": [
    {"type": "h2", "text": "Section Header"},
    {"type": "p", "text": "Paragraph content"},
    {"type": "code", "text": "code content", "language": "python"},
    {"type": "image", "src": "url", "local_path": "images/img.png", "caption": "..."}
  ]
}

2. Generate Bilingual Markdown

def generate_bilingual_markdown(data: dict, output_path: Path):
    md_lines = []
    
    # Header with original title
    md_lines.append(f"# {data['title']} (中英对照)\n")
    md_lines.append(f"> **原文链接:** {data.get('source_url', '')}\n")
    md_lines.append("---\n")
    
    last_image_hash = None
    
    for section in data['sections']:
        stype = section['type']
        
        # Headers
        if stype == 'h2':
            md_lines.append(f"\n## {section['text']}\n")
            md_lines.append("\n[待翻译]\n")
        elif stype == 'h3':
            md_lines.append(f"\n### {section['text']}\n")
            md_lines.append("\n[待翻译]\n")
        
        # Paragraphs
        elif stype == 'p':
            md_lines.append(f"\n{section['text']}\n")
            md_lines.append("\n[待翻译]\n")
        
        # Code blocks (no translation needed)
        elif stype == 'code':
            lang = section.get('language', 'python')
            md_lines.append(f"\n```{lang}\n{section['text']}\n```\n")
        
        # Images (deduplicate by hash)
        elif stype == 'image':
            if 'local_path' in section:
                current_hash = extract_hash(section['local_path'])
                if current_hash != last_image_hash:
                    md_lines.append(f"\n![{section.get('alt', '')}]({section['local_path']})\n")
                    if section.get('caption'):
                        md_lines.append(f"*{section['caption']}*\n")
                    last_image_hash = current_hash
    
    # Write output
    with open(output_path, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
        f.writelines(md_lines)

3. Handle Special Cases

Skip UI elements:

# Filter out common UI noise
skip_texts = ['--', 'Listen', 'Share', 'Follow', 'Sign up', 'Sign in']
if section['type'] == 'p' and section['text'] in skip_texts:
    continue

Deduplicate images:

import re

def extract_hash(filename: str) -> str:
    """Extract hash from filename like img_16_21c1b3df.png"""
    match = re.search(r'img_\d+_([a-f0-9]+)\.\w+', filename)
    return match.group(1) if match else None

Preserve code formatting:

# Don't add translation placeholders for code blocks
if stype == 'code':
    md_lines.append(f"\n```{section.get('language', '')}\n{section['text']}\n```\n")
    # No [待翻译] here

Workflow

Step 1: Prepare Structured Data

From web scraping or manual extraction:

article_data = {
    'title': 'Technical Article Title',
    'source_url': 'https://...',
    'sections': [...]
}

with open('article_data.json', 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
    json.dump(article_data, f, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False)

Step 2: Generate Bilingual Template

uv run python generate_bilingual_md.py

Output example:

# Technical Article Title (中英对照)

> **原文链接:** https://...

---

## Introduction

[待翻译]

This article explains the concept...

[待翻译]

```python
def example():
    pass

### Step 3: Fill in Translations

Manually or with AI assistance:
```markdown
## Introduction

## 简介

[待翻译]

This article explains the concept...

本文解释了这个概念...

Configuration

Translation Placeholder

Customize the placeholder text:

TRANSLATION_PLACEHOLDER = "[待翻译]"  # Chinese
# or
TRANSLATION_PLACEHOLDER = "[To be translated]"  # English

Section Handling

Configure which sections need translation:

TRANSLATABLE_TYPES = ['h1', 'h2', 'h3', 'p', 'blockquote']
NO_TRANSLATION_TYPES = ['code', 'image', 'table']

Image Deduplication

Enable/disable:

DEDUPLICATE_IMAGES = True  # Recommended for Medium articles

Output Formats

Standard Bilingual (Side-by-side)

Original text here.

翻译文本在这里。

Inline Bilingual

Original text here. (翻译文本在这里。)

Separate Files

# Generate two files
generate_original_only(data, 'article_en.md')
generate_translation_only(data, 'article_zh.md')

Validation

Before using the generated markdown:

• Check that all sections have translation placeholders
• Verify code blocks are preserved without placeholders
• Ensure images are not duplicated
• Confirm formatting (headers, lists, quotes) is correct
• Test that links and image paths are valid

Best Practices

1. Preserve structure: Keep original formatting intact
2. Clear placeholders: Use consistent, searchable placeholder text
3. Code blocks: Never add translation placeholders inside code
4. Image captions: Translate captions separately if needed
5. Incremental work: Fill translations section by section
6. Version control: Commit original template before translating

Integration with Translation Tools

Manual Translation

1. Generate template with placeholders
2. Use editor's find/replace to locate [待翻译]
3. Replace with actual translation
4. Keep original text above translation

AI-Assisted Translation

def translate_section(text: str, target_lang: str = 'zh') -> str:
    # Use OpenAI, DeepL, or other translation API
    response = client.chat.completions.create(
        model="gpt-4",
        messages=[{
            "role": "user",
            "content": f"Translate to {target_lang}: {text}"
        }]
    )
    return response.choices[0].message.content

Batch Translation

def fill_translations(md_path: Path):
    with open(md_path, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f:
        content = f.read()
    
    # Find all sections needing translation
    sections = re.findall(r'(.*?)\n\n\[待翻译\]', content)
    
    for section in sections:
        translation = translate_section(section)
        content = content.replace(
            f"{section}\n\n[待翻译]",
            f"{section}\n\n{translation}"
        )
    
    with open(md_path, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
        f.write(content)

Common Issues

Issue: Images appear multiple times

Solution: Enable hash-based deduplication:

last_image_hash = None
for section in sections:
    if section['type'] == 'image':
        current_hash = extract_hash(section['local_path'])
        if current_hash != last_image_hash:
            # Add image
            last_image_hash = current_hash

Issue: Code blocks have translation placeholders

Solution: Skip translation for code:

if section['type'] == 'code':
    md_lines.append(f"\n```{lang}\n{text}\n```\n")
    # Don't add [待翻译]

Issue: Special characters break formatting

Solution: Use proper encoding:

with open(output_path, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
    f.write(content)

Reference Scripts

See .skills/learning-bilingual_content/scripts/ for implementation:

• generate_bilingual_md.py - Main generation script
• translate_batch.py - Batch translation helper