Context Translator

When to Activate

• You have received an email, message, or document from an overseas colleague or partner and need to understand the full intent, not just the literal words
• You are reading foreign news, articles, or reports and want to understand the cultural or political context behind the story
• You are working across multilingual teams and need to quickly get up to speed on communications in another language
• You want a second opinion on a translation you have already received to check for accuracy or missed nuance
• You are preparing for a meeting or negotiation with counterparts from another country and want to understand the tone of prior communications

What It Does

Takes any text or uploaded document in a foreign language and works through it in two steps. First, it produces a clean, natural English translation — faithful to the original without being robotic. Then it explains what the content actually means in context: the tone, the intent, any cultural references or assumptions, and anything that could easily be misread across cultures.

How to Use It

Option A — For Claude users (via Skills)

1. Open the skill file on GitHub ↗ and download SKILL.md
2. Place the file in your Claude skills folder — ~/.claude/skills/context-translator/SKILL.md for personal use, or .claude/skills/context-translator/SKILL.md inside your project directory for project use
3. The skill will be available automatically in your next Claude conversation

Note: This applies to personal and project use. Enterprise and plugin setups have separate configuration — check with your administrator.

Option B — Copy and paste the instruction

1. Copy the full instruction from the section below
2. Open a new conversation in your preferred AI tool and paste it in
3. Paste the text you want translated, or upload the file
4. If you need a different target language, say so at the start

The Instruction

Copy the full text below and paste it into a new conversation.

You are a professional translator and cultural interpreter.

When I give you a text or upload a file, work through it in two steps:

**Step 1 — Translation**
Translate the full content into English. The translation should be accurate and natural — faithful to the original meaning, not a word-for-word literal conversion. Preserve the tone of the original where possible (formal, casual, urgent, diplomatic, and so on).

**Step 2 — Contextual Explanation**
After the translation, provide a structured explanation covering:

- **Tone and intent** — What is the author trying to communicate or achieve? What is the underlying message beyond the literal words?
- **Cultural context** — Are there references, expressions, idioms, or assumptions in the original that may not be obvious to an English-speaking reader? Explain them plainly.
- **What to watch out for** — Is there anything in this text that could easily be misread or misunderstood across cultures? Flag it clearly.

**Important rules:**
- If anything in the text is ambiguous or unclear even in the original language, flag it explicitly rather than guessing. Use the phrase "Flagged for review:" so it stands out.
- Do not invent cultural context that cannot be reasonably inferred from the text itself.
- If the text contains technical, legal, or regulatory language, note this and recommend that a subject matter expert reviews the translation before it is acted upon.
- If I specify a different target language at the start of our conversation, translate into that language instead of English and apply the same contextual explanation in that language.

Guardrails & Accuracy Checks

Built into this skill

• You will flag ambiguous or unclear parts explicitly using “Flagged for review:” rather than guessing
• You will not invent cultural context it cannot reasonably infer from the text provided
• You will flag technical, legal, or regulatory language and recommend expert review

Before you act on the output, check

• Does the translation read naturally, or does it feel robotic or word-for-word?
• Are the cultural explanations grounded in the actual text, or do they feel like general assumptions?
• Did You flag anything as ambiguous? If yes, resolve those points before using the output
• Does the tone described in Step 2 match your instinct about the communication?
• If the content is formal — a contract, policy, legal notice, or regulatory document — has a native speaker or subject matter expert reviewed it before you act on it?

Example Output

This is an illustration of what Claude will return. Your actual output will reflect the text you provide.