I build small Claude Skills for narrow, repetitive jobs. One of mine is not a translator. It is a first-pass localization checker for Chinese short-drama lines: paste in the Chinese, and it flags literal translations, rewrites the line in neutral Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, explains every change in Chinese, and calls out puns or culture-specific jokes that need a workaround.
That distinction matters. Most of the lines I tested did not fail because the grammar was wrong. They failed because a perfectly literal rendering produced the wrong image, the wrong tone, or the wrong relationship between the speakers.
Here are five examples from the fictional demo set I use to test the checker.
1. "Playing dumb" becomes garlic
Chinese:
你少在这儿装蒜了，你那点小心思，我一眼就看穿了。
装蒜 (zhuāng suàn) means "playing dumb," but 蒜 is garlic. Translate the image literally and Spanish viewers get hacerse el ajo — roughly, "to make yourself the garlic."
A dubbing editor would drop the vegetable and keep the function:
- Spanish: No te hagas el tonto conmigo. Sé perfectamente lo que tramas.
- Brazilian Portuguese: Não se faça de bobo comigo. Eu sei muito bem o que você tá tramando.
Both use an existing local expression for playing dumb. Neither asks the audience to think about produce in the middle of an argument.
2. A sarcastic apology becomes a sincere one
Chinese:
行行行，你说的都对，我错了还不行吗？
The speaker is not really apologizing. This is the eye-roll version of "Fine, fine, you're right, I'm wrong — happy?"
A literal translation keeps the admission and loses the sarcasm:
- Spanish: Ya, ya, ya… tú siempre tienes la razón. ¿Contento?
- Brazilian Portuguese: Tá, tá, tá… você tá sempre certo. Satisfeito?
The repeated ya and tá do the work that the repeated 行 does in Chinese. Collapse them into one polite "okay," and the performance changes completely.
I put the complete worked checks for these five lines — original, problem flags, Spanish rewrite, Brazilian Portuguese rewrite, and the reasoning in Chinese — into a free sample:
Free sample — 5 checked short-drama lines: https://promptandskillco.gumroad.com/l/free-localization-sample
Try those first. If the format does not fit how you review scripts, the full version will not magically fit either.
3. A term of closeness turns into a family claim
Chinese:
姐妹，听我的，男人不能惯，越惯越混蛋。
姐妹 can be a warm way to address a close friend. In Spanish or Portuguese, reaching automatically for the equivalent of "sister" can make the relationship sound literal, depending on the region and context.
The safer functional choice in the demo is amiga:
- Spanish: Amiga, hazme caso: a los hombres no hay que consentirlos, porque se ponen peor.
- Brazilian Portuguese: Amiga, me escuta: homem não se mima, quanto mais mima, pior fica.
The check is not "never use a kinship word." It is "notice when a Chinese address term is doing social work that the target-language word may not do in the same way."
4. "Landlady-auntie" creates an accidental relative
Chinese:
房东阿姨，房租能不能宽限几天？我这个月手头有点紧。
阿姨 is a polite form of address here, not a statement that the landlady is the speaker's aunt. Spanish tía or Portuguese tia can make it sound like an actual family relationship.
The demo uses a respectful non-family form instead:
- Spanish: Señora, ¿me podría dar unos días más para el alquiler? Este mes estoy un poco corta de dinero.
- Brazilian Portuguese: Dona Marta, a senhora me dá mais uns dias pro aluguel? Esse mês eu tô meio apertada.
This line contains a second trap: 手头紧 literally mentions a "tight hand," but it means money is tight. Both target versions use an ordinary money expression instead of translating the body image.
5. An oath loses its oath
Chinese:
林晓，我对你是认真的，天地良心。
天地良心 is a Chinese oath formula. Rendering heaven, earth, and conscience word for word does not recreate the force of the promise. It mainly creates a phrase nobody would say during a confession scene.
The functional rewrites are:
- Spanish: Lin Xiao, lo mío contigo va en serio. Te lo juro.
- Brazilian Portuguese: Lin Xiao, o que eu sinto por você é sério. Juro por Deus.
The image changes. The speech act — "I am serious, and I swear it" — stays.
Why I packaged this as a checker
A one-off prompt can occasionally catch one of these problems. The harder part is checking sixty lines the same way: flag the literal image, preserve the tone, choose a natural spoken rewrite, and explain the change so the original writer can judge it.
That is why the full version is a Skill with a fixed workflow and output format rather than a loose instruction such as "translate this naturally." It is also why I keep the limit visible: this is a first-pass check, not a replacement for a native reviewer before broadcast.
If you want to inspect the format before paying for anything, start with the free five-line sample above.
If the workflow does fit your production process, the complete Short-Video Line Localization Checker — the Skill, its fixed output format, and the fully worked demo — is $19, one-time:
https://promptandskillco.gumroad.com/l/pidqzx
Which kind of line breaks most often in your work: idiom images, tone, or forms of address?
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