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Translate it and keep the tone

A translation that reads like it was written in the target language, with notes on the places where a literal version would have sounded off.

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Claude Fable 5.1
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The prompt

Translate this from [SOURCE LANGUAGE] into [TARGET LANGUAGE].

Who'll read it: [AUDIENCE, e.g. customers of an online shop, users of a mobile app]
Register: [e.g. informal and friendly, formal but warm, neutral]
Words that must stay as they are: [PRODUCT NAMES, BRAND TERMS, OR "none"]

<text>
[PASTE THE TEXT]
</text>

How I'd like you to work:
- Translate meaning and tone, not words. If a joke, idiom or cultural reference wouldn't land, replace it with something that does the same job, and tell me you did.
- Keep the formatting: headings, lists, line breaks, placeholders like {name}.
- Match the register I gave you. If the source is playful, the result should be playful in the target language, not stiff.
- Don't add or drop information.

After the translation, list the places where you deliberately moved away from a literal version, with the reason for each. Then flag anything you weren't sure about, so I can ask a native speaker.
  • translation
  • localisation
  • tone

What it generates

Example

Translation (English to French, informal and friendly)

Votre commande est en route !

On a bien reçu votre paiement, et vos affaires sont déjà en train d'être emballées. Comptez 2 à 4 jours ouvrés pour la livraison.

Un petit conseil : si vous n'êtes pas chez vous, vous pouvez rediriger le colis vers un point relais depuis le lien de suivi. Ça évite le petit papier dans la boîte aux lettres.

Des questions ? Répondez simplement à cet e-mail, il y a un humain de l'autre côté.

L'équipe {shop_name}

Where I moved away from a literal version

  • "Your stuff is on its way" became "Votre commande est en route". "Vos affaires" would be too casual for a subject line in French, even in an informal register.
  • "Skip the dreaded slip in your mailbox" became "Ça évite le petit papier dans la boîte aux lettres". "Dreaded" doesn't translate well here, and the French phrase carries the same shared annoyance.
  • "There's a real human on the other end" became "il y a un humain de l'autre côté". I dropped "real", which sounds defensive in French.

Check with a native speaker

  • Whether your customers expect "vous" (used here) or "tu". Some French shops with a young audience use "tu" throughout.
  • "Point relais" is the everyday term in France. For Belgium or Switzerland, the usual wording differs.

NoteThis is an example. Results change between runs and model versions. Claude Prompts is a fan project and is not affiliated with Anthropic.

Getting the most from this prompt

What it's good at

Customer emails, app copy, product descriptions, help articles, anything where tone does real work. It's not for contracts or medical text, where a literal translation and a professional's stamp matter more than natural flow.

The fields that change the result

Register is the big one. "Formal but warm" and "informal and friendly" produce different words, different sentence lengths and, in many languages, a different form of "you". Name your audience's country when it matters: French for France and French for Quebec aren't the same, and the prompt only knows what you tell it.

About the notes at the end

The list of deliberate changes is the part to read closely. It tells you where the translator made a judgment call, and those are exactly the lines to show a native speaker if you have one. If you don't, at least read the flagged items. They're the places where a small mistake would be most visible to your readers.

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