Quick-reference for bilingual drafts
Catch tone slips and hidden idioms in rough translations.
Paste your source text and a rough translation side by side. The polisher returns short footnotes that explain likely idiom mismatches, register shifts, and cultural assumptions, so you can decide what to keep, adapt, or flag for a professional translator.
Polisher workspace
Paste your source and translated text, pick a context, and generate footnotes.
No footnotes yet
Paste your text and click Generate footnotes to see likely idiom mismatches, register notes, and rewrite suggestions.
Worked example
A short Spanish-to-English draft and the footnotes the polisher returns.
Source text
Hola, vecino. Te escribo para contarte que la semana pasada estuvo muy movida por el barrio. La feria del libro fue un exitazo, aunque algunos puestos se quedaron sin cambio y la cosa se puso fea. Ojalá podamos repetir el año que viene, pero sin tanto drama.
Rough translation
Hello, neighbor. I write to tell you that last week was very moved by the neighborhood. The book fair was a big success, although some stands stayed without change and the thing got ugly. Hopefully we can repeat next year, but without so much drama.
Footnotes the polisher returns
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"very moved by the neighborhood"
"Estuvo muy movida" is an idiom meaning eventful or busy, not physically moved. A clearer phrasing is "last week was packed in the neighborhood."
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"stayed without change"
"Se quedaron sin cambio" refers to vendors running out of small bills for change. A more natural phrasing is "some vendors ran out of change."
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"the thing got ugly"
"La cosa se puso fea" means the situation became tense or messy. "Things got messy" or "it got complicated" fits better than a literal translation.
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"without so much drama"
"Drama" here means fuss or trouble, not theatrical drama. "Without so much fuss" or "with fewer complications" reads more naturally in English.
Register spectrum reference
Use this spectrum to decide whether your translation matches the intended audience.
Common mistakes to watch for
- Translating idioms word for word instead of finding an equivalent expression.
- Using formal pronouns or verb forms when the source text is casual.
- Keeping gendered forms that do not exist in the target language without adaptation.
- Preserving humor that relies on wordplay without adding a brief explanation.
- Carrying over culture-specific references that the target audience will not recognize.
Questions people often ask
- Does this polisher replace a professional translator?
- No. It is a quick-reference pass that surfaces likely issues. Final review should still be done by a qualified translator, especially for legal, medical, or published material.
- Which languages does it support?
- You can paste text in any language pair. The polisher focuses on common idiom, register, and tone patterns rather than full machine translation.
- What does the context preset change?
- It adjusts the register expectations and the kinds of idioms the polisher looks for. A social media post is read differently from an official letter.
- Can I save my work?
- Yes. You can download the footnote list as a text file or copy a share link that encodes your inputs in the URL. No data is stored on a server.
- What should I double-check myself?
- Names, numbers, dates, legal terms, and domain-specific jargon. The polisher is not reliable for exact factual accuracy.
Assumptions and limitations
- The polisher assumes the source text is the authoritative version and the translation is a draft.
- It highlights likely issues based on common patterns, not every possible nuance.
- Regional dialects and very new slang may not be covered.
- Highly specialized fields such as law, medicine, and finance need expert review beyond this polisher.
Last updated: 2026. Version 1.4.