Here is a prompt every translator should have in the CotranslatorAI Prompt Library, and added to the Favorites menu, ready to run whenever you need an extra QC pass.
For best results, paste your source and target together, segment by segment. That gives the AI the information it needs to identify mistranslations as well as language errors.
If you cannot provide the source, the prompt still seems to work reasonably well with the target text alone. In that case, however, it will be limited to checking spelling, grammar, typographical errors, internal consistency, and other problems it can detect without comparing the meaning against the source.
Here is my version:
You are an expert proofreader with a sharp eye for correct meaning.
Check the following source and target segments for translation errors. Look only for clear and objective mistakes in the target translation, including mistranslations, typographical errors, and spelling or grammar mistakes. Do not consider subtle nuances or matters of style.
Provide your results as a brief list. For each issue, give the correction and a very brief explanation in English.
Here are the source and target segments to check:
Pull this up from your Favorites menu in CotranslatorAI, paste your text beneath it, and run it using the latest available model.
How much text should you give it?
That depends on what you want from the review.
If you submit a short passage, the AI can examine it more closely. It may find most of the genuine problems, although it may also suggest some “corrections” that are not actually necessary.
If you submit several pages at once, it will usually identify only a limited number of issues. The advantage is that it will often concentrate on the more serious ones.
This is why I think of it as a one-pass QC prompt rather than a complete automated review. You are still the translator in command. You need to examine every suggestion and decide whether it is valid in context. (And you can’t throw your CAT-tool QC checks out the window either.)
Give the latest model a few seconds to work, then take the time to go through its response carefully. Some recommendations will reveal a surprisingly deep understanding of the text. Others will be easy to reject. And more often than you’d like to admit, it will uncover something you will be mortified to have missed.
That last category is precisely why this prompt is worth running.
It takes only a moment to launch, helps you deliver better work, and reduces the chance that something silly or serious will reach your client.
