TRANSLATION_GUIDE.md

May 16, 2026 · View on GitHub

🌐 Riksdagsmonitor — Translation Guide

🗣️ Consistent Multilingual Political Intelligence Across 14 Languages
🇸🇪🇬🇧🇩🇰🇳🇴🇫🇮🇩🇪🇫🇷🇪🇸🇳🇱🇸🇦🇮🇱🇯🇵🇰🇷🇨🇳 · RTL Support · BCP-47 Compliance

📋 Document Owner: CEO | 📄 Version: 1.0 | 📅 Last Updated: 2026-02-10 (UTC)
🏢 Owner: Hack23 AB (Org.nr 559534-7807) | 🏷️ Classification: 🟢 Public
📂 Repository: Hack23/riksdagsmonitor

📋 Overview

This guide provides comprehensive translation standards and terminology for the Riksdagsmonitor platform across all 14 supported languages. It ensures consistency, accuracy, and cultural appropriateness in all language variants.

📰 News articles are translated out-of-band

News articles are not localised by the workflow that generates them. The per-type news workflows (news-propositions, news-motions, news-committee-reports, news-interpellations, news-evening-analysis, news-realtime-monitor, news-week-ahead, news-month-ahead, news-weekly-review, news-monthly-review) each run the two-step aggregate-then-render pipeline (scripts/aggregate-analysis.ts → analysis/daily/$DATE/$SUB/article.md → scripts/render-articles.ts + scripts/render-lib/) to emit rendered HTML files for all 14 languages per article:

news/$DATE-$SUB-en.html (English master)
news/$DATE-$SUB-sv.html (Swedish)
news/$DATE-$SUB-da.html, news/$DATE-$SUB-no.html, …, news/$DATE-$SUB-zh.html (remaining 12 languages)

All 14 language renderings are produced by the per-type workflows themselves via the localized executive-brief cascade inside the renderer. Per-type workflows write only the canonical English article.md (aggregated from all 23 analysis artifacts). The renderer then composes the English article.md body with executive-brief_<lang>.md (when present) via the cascade chain in scripts/render-lib/article-merge.ts (mergeLocalizedWithEnglish) + scripts/render-lib/aggregator/seo/localized-brief.ts to produce each non-English HTML file. The English body remains in English prose — only the executive-brief hero section + SEO metadata is localized.

Per-type workflows do NOT write article.<lang>.md — these files are now forbidden by scripts/validate-file-ownership.ts (category-independent reject). The ownership validator is invoked with --files-from and inspects only the paths it receives; an untouched historical article.<lang>.md already on disk is not flagged simply because a PR modifies another file in the same folder. The validator rejects an article.<lang>.md path only when that specific file is part of the changed-file input (i.e. a PR creates, modifies, deletes, or otherwise lists it).

The standalone news-translate workflow does not touch news/*.html at all; its sole mission is executive-brief Markdown translation — see §"Executive Brief Markdown Translations" below.

In parallel with the rendered HTML, each per-type workflow also writes a Markdown executive brief (the 60-second BLUF artifact, ≈ 400–600 words) at analysis/daily/$DATE/$SUB/executive-brief.md (English only). Localised siblings executive-brief_<lang>.md for all 13 non-English target languages are produced exclusively by news-translate, which runs three times daily (09:00 / 14:00 / 19:00 UTC) and:

Scans analysis/daily/**/executive-brief.md for sources that are missing translations or whose  trailer no longer matches the current git log -1 --format=%H of the source.
Picks up at most max_briefs source files per run (default 3, range 1–7), prioritising the oldest article date first.
Translates each source into every requested target language using the terminology tables in this guide.
Validates every translation with scripts/validate-executive-brief-translations.ts (structural parity, dok_id preservation, RTL markers, no English BLUF leakage, source-SHA trailer).
Commits the batch and opens one PR per run.

No other workflow — and no other contributor process — writes localised executive briefs or localised article HTML. This decoupling means:

Editorial changes to a source executive brief ripple through all 14 languages in the next news-translate run.
Terminology drift is detectable: a single news-translate regression only affects non-EN files.
The 14 top-level index_*.html pages and political-intelligence_*.html pages remain hand-translated (that workflow is not in scope here).

When translating HTML that has already been rendered, do not modify <pre class="mermaid"> blocks — the Mermaid diagram source is a syntactic DSL that must survive untouched. Translate the adjacent <figcaption> and <details> fallback blocks instead. The same rule applies to fenced ```mermaid blocks in executive-brief Markdown.

Supported Languages (14)

Language	Code	File	Direction	Status
🇬🇧 English	en	index.html	LTR	✅ Master
🇸🇪 Swedish	sv	index_sv.html	LTR	✅ Complete
🇩🇰 Danish	da	index_da.html	LTR	✅ Complete
🇳🇴 Norwegian	no	index_no.html	LTR	✅ Complete
🇫🇮 Finnish	fi	index_fi.html	LTR	✅ Complete
🇩🇪 German	de	index_de.html	LTR	✅ Complete
🇫🇷 French	fr	index_fr.html	LTR	✅ Complete
🇪🇸 Spanish	es	index_es.html	LTR	✅ Complete
🇳🇱 Dutch	nl	index_nl.html	LTR	✅ Complete
🇸🇦 Arabic	ar	index_ar.html	RTL	✅ Complete
🇮🇱 Hebrew	he	index_he.html	RTL	✅ Complete
🇯🇵 Japanese	ja	index_ja.html	LTR	✅ Complete
🇰🇷 Korean	ko	index_ko.html	LTR	✅ Complete
🇨🇳 Chinese	zh	index_zh.html	LTR	✅ Complete

📝 Executive Brief Markdown Translations

Scope. Authoritative rules for translating analysis/daily/$ARTICLE_DATE/$SUBFOLDER/executive-brief.md (the 60-second BLUF artifact produced by every per-type news workflow) into the 13 non-English target languages. The news-translate workflow is the sole writer of these translations; no other workflow or contributor process may emit executive-brief_<lang>.md.

File naming contract

Role	Path	Owner	Language
Canonical source	`analysis/daily/$DATE/$SUB/executive-brief.md`	Per-type news workflow (`news-propositions`, `news-motions`, …)	English (`en`) — no suffix
Translation sibling	`analysis/daily/$DATE/$SUB/executive-brief_sv.md`	`news-translate`	Swedish
Translation sibling	`analysis/daily/$DATE/$SUB/executive-brief_<lang>.md`	`news-translate`	One per language in `{sv, da, no, fi, de, fr, es, nl, ar, he, ja, ko, zh}`

Together with the English source these 14 files cover the full 14-language set. No executive-brief_en.md file is ever created — executive-brief.md IS the English version. This is the only deviation from the index_<lang>.html naming pattern in the rest of the platform.

Source-revision signal (drift detection)

Every translation MUST end with a single-line HTML comment that records the source commit at translation time:

<!-- source-sha: <40-hex-sha> -->

The trailer is computed at translation time via git log -1 --format=%H -- analysis/daily/$DATE/$SUB/executive-brief.md. The news-translate workflow compares this trailer against the current source SHA on every run: matching ⇒ skip that language; mismatching ⇒ re-translate. Filesystem mtimes are never used as a freshness signal — actions/checkout resets them on every CI runner.

Verbatim preservation (NEVER translate, NEVER reword)

Block	Why
YAML / HTML front-matter blocks	Renderer reads them as structured data — translation breaks parsing.
`dok_id` codes (e.g. `H901FiU1`, `HA02UU3`, `H8011AU10`)	Identifiers in the Riksdag API; translating breaks evidence links.
MP `intressent_id` numeric codes	Stable Riksdag identifiers.
Vote IDs and Schema.org JSON-LD `@id` URIs	Machine-readable references.
Image / badge / icon URLs (`https://img.shields.io/...`, `https://hack23.com/icon-192.png`)	Asset references.
Mermaid diagram DSL bodies (everything between ```mermaid and ```)	Domain-specific syntax — translation will break rendering. Including `%%{init: ...}%%` prologues and `style …` / `classDef …` directives.
Code-fence content for any language (```ts, ```bash, ```json, …)	Code is not prose.
Inline `code` spans	Identifiers / commands.
Markdown link targets (`](url)` and `[ref]: url`)	URLs only — link text IS translated.
File paths (`analysis/daily/...`, `scripts/...`, `.github/workflows/...`)	Repository structure.
Citation column values in evidence-anchor tables: `dok_id`, `retrieved_at` timestamps, `confidence` levels (`HIGH` / `MEDIUM` / `LOW`)	Tradecraft canonical labels — these stay English even in non-English files.
Numeric values, percentages, dates in ISO 8601 (`2026-05-16`), commit SHAs	Data, not prose.
HTML comments starting `<!-- source-sha:`, `<!-- TEMPLATE_CONTRACT_`, `<!-- dir: rtl -->`	Tooling markers.

Always translate

Block	Notes
All running prose paragraphs	Editor-grade tone, see §"Tone register" below.
Headings (`#`, `##`, `###`, …)	Including the BLUF heading and section headings.
Markdown list items (bulleted and numbered)	The 8-bullet 60-second read MUST stay as 8 bullets.
Table cell text (not codes, IDs, URLs, or canonical confidence labels)	Column headers ARE translated.
Markdown link text (the `[text]` half)	Target URL stays.
Image `alt` attributes	Accessibility-critical.
Badge label segments where they encode text — e.g. `Owner-CEO` → translate "Owner" only if the badge URL is regenerated; otherwise leave the whole badge intact (cosmetic).	Default: leave badges intact.
Mermaid `figcaption` and `<details>` fallback prose outside the fenced block	Translate; the DSL inside the fence stays English.
`<!-- Template instructions -->` / `<!-- AI-FIRST -->` HTML comment prose only if the comment is content-bearing rather than a tooling marker. Default: keep tooling comments verbatim.

Structural parity (validator-enforced)

The validator (scripts/validate-executive-brief-translations.ts) requires translated files to match the source on:

Check	Tolerance
Total heading count	exact (±0)
Mermaid fence count	exact (±0)
Code-fence count (all languages)	exact (±0)
Table count and row counts	exact (±0)
Evidence-anchor table column headers present in expected order	exact
`dok_id` references preserved (set equality)	exact
Image / external-URL set preserved	exact
Top-level word count	source ±25 % (translations expand or contract by language; outside ±25 % flags drift)
Trailing `<!-- source-sha: ... -->` marker present and well-formed	required

Tone register per language

The executive brief is decision-grade BLUF for editors and duty officers — confident, factual, no hedging beyond the explicit confidence labels. Apply the dictionary translations from §"Political & Parliamentary Terms", §"OSINT & Intelligence Terms", §"Swedish Parliamentary Document Types" and §"Riksdag Committee Abbreviations" verbatim. Where a Swedish parliamentary term has no single-word target-language equivalent, prefer the dictionary entry over a literal translation.

Language	Register	Notes
`sv`	Editorial Swedish (Standard `Standardsvenska`)	Match Riksdag press-release voice. Always render party abbreviations in Swedish (S, M, SD, V, MP, C, L, KD).
`da`	Editorial Danish (`Rigsmål`)	Translate Swedish-specific institutions; keep `Riksdagen` capitalised.
`no`	Editorial `bokmål`	Use existing `no` code (legacy convention — see `scripts/validate-file-ownership.ts`).
`fi`	Standard Finnish (`yleiskieli`)	Compound nouns favoured; Swedish loanwords for political institutions are acceptable when no Finnish equivalent exists.
`de`	Editorial German (`Standarddeutsch`)	Use `der Riksdag`, not "schwedisches Parlament".
`fr`	Editorial French (`français standard`)	"Le Riksdag" with definite article.
`es`	Editorial Spanish (Castilian register)	"El Riksdag", masculine.
`nl`	Editorial Dutch (`Standaardnederlands`)	"De Riksdag", common gender.
`ar`	Modern Standard Arabic (MSA, `الفصحى`)	RTL — see §"RTL Languages". Numbers stay Western Arabic numerals to match the source.
`he`	Modern Hebrew (`עברית תקנית`)	RTL — see §"RTL Languages". Use definite article `ה` consistently.
`ja`	Editorial Japanese (常体 / です・ます choice: prefer `です・ます` for editor copy)	Foreign names in katakana on first use, then English in parentheses where helpful.
`ko`	Editorial Korean (`표준어`, formal `합니다체`)	Hangul; transliterate Swedish names on first use.
`zh`	Simplified Chinese (`简体中文`)	Mainland editorial register; foreign names in Chinese transliteration on first use.

RTL-specific rules (Arabic & Hebrew)

Insert  as the first non-frontmatter line of every executive-brief_ar.md and executive-brief_he.md so downstream renderers and aggregators can detect direction without parsing the language code.
Punctuation marks must use RTL Unicode forms where appropriate (، ARABIC COMMA U+060C, ؟ ARABIC QUESTION MARK U+061F, Hebrew ׃ SOF PASUQ U+05C3 sparingly).
Mermaid diagrams stay LTR — wrap the rendered figure in an <div dir="ltr"> block in the surrounding HTML; the Markdown source itself does not need a wrapper.

Workflow integration

Workflow	Reads	Writes	Frequency
Per-type news (`news-propositions`, `news-motions`, …)	—	`executive-brief.md` (EN) only	Per type, daily
`news-translate`	`executive-brief.md`	`executive-brief_.md$ \text{for} \text{the} 13 \text{target} \text{languages}	3 \times \text{daily} (09:00, 14:00, 19:00 \text{UTC}, 7 \text{days}/\text{week})

\text{The} \text{translation} \text{workflow} \text{picks} \text{up} \text{at} \text{most} $max_briefs(default3, range 1–7) untranslated or drifted source files per run, translates them into every requested target language (default = all 13 non-EN languages), and validates each translation with scripts/validate-executive-brief-translations.tsbefore committing. See.github/workflows/news-translate.md` for the operational contract and time budget.

Acceptance checklist (per translated file)

Filename matches analysis/daily/$DATE/$SUB/executive-brief_<lang>.md.
Heading, fence, table, and Mermaid counts match the source exactly.
Every dok_id, intressent ID, vote ID, and external URL from the source appears in the translation.
No verbatim English BLUF / section labels ("Executive Brief", "BLUF", "Decisions", "Confidence", "Key Takeaways", "What Happened", "What It Means") remain in non-English files (validator scans a banned-phrase list).
ar / he files start with .
File ends with  matching the source's git log -1 --format=%H.
scripts/validate-executive-brief-translations.ts exits 0 for this file.

🎯 Translation Principles

1. Never Translate (Brand Names & Proper Nouns)

Term	Reason
Hack23	Company name
Hack23 AB	Swedish legal entity (Org.nr 5595347807)
Citizen Intelligence Agency (CIA)	Platform/project name
Riksdag	Swedish Parliament (proper noun)
Riksdagsmonitor	Product name
James Pether Sörling	Founder name
CISSP, CISM	Professional certifications
GitHub, LinkedIn	Platform names
OpenSSF	Open Source Security Foundation

2. Terminology Categories

A. CIA Triad (Core Security Concepts)

The CIA Triad is fundamental to information security. Use consistent translations:

English	Swedish	Arabic	Hebrew	German	French	Spanish
CIA Triad	CIA-triaden	ثلاثية CIA	שלישיית CIA	CIA-Triade	Triade CIA	Tríada CIA
Confidentiality	Konfidentialitet	السرية	סודיות	Vertraulichkeit	Confidentialité	Confidencialidad
Integrity	Integritet	السلامة	שלמות	Integrität	Intégrité	Integridad
Availability	Tillgänglighet	التوافر	זמינות	Verfügbarkeit	Disponibilité	Disponibilidad

English	Danish	Norwegian	Finnish	Dutch	Japanese	Korean	Chinese
CIA Triad	CIA-triaden	CIA-triaden	CIA-triadi	CIA-triade	CIA トライアド	CIA 3요소	CIA 三要素
Confidentiality	Fortrolighed	Konfidensialitet	Luottamuksellisuus	Vertrouwelijkheid	機密性	기밀성	机密性
Integrity	Integritet	Integritet	Eheys	Integriteit	完全性	무결성	完整性
Availability	Tilgængelighed	Tilgjengelighet	Saatavuus	Beschikbaarheid	可用性	가용성	可用性

B. Political & Parliamentary Terms

English	Swedish	Danish	Norwegian	Finnish	German
Parliament	Riksdag	Folketing	Storting	Eduskunta	Parlament
Member of Parliament (MP)	Riksdagsledamot	Folketingsmedlem	Stortingsrepresentant	Kansanedustaja	Parlamentsmitglied
Committee	Utskott	Udvalg	Komité	Valiokunta	Ausschuss
Coalition	Koalition	Koalition	Koalisjon	Koalitio	Koalition
Opposition	Opposition	Opposition	Opposisjon	Oppositio	Opposition
Election	Val	Valg	Valg	Vaalit	Wahl
Voting	Röstning	Afstemning	Avstemning	Äänestys	Abstimmung

English	French	Spanish	Dutch	Arabic	Hebrew
Parliament	Parlement	Parlamento	Parlement	البرلمان	פרלמנט
Member of Parliament (MP)	Député	Diputado	Parlementslid	عضو البرلمان	חבר פרלמנט
Committee	Commission	Comité	Commissie	لجنة	ועדה
Coalition	Coalition	Coalición	Coalitie	تحالف	קואליציה
Opposition	Opposition	Oposición	Oppositie	المعارضة	אופוזיציה
Election	Élection	Elección	Verkiezing	انتخابات	בחירות
Voting	Vote	Votación	Stemming	تصويت	הצבעה

English	Japanese	Korean	Chinese
Parliament	議会	의회	议会
Member of Parliament (MP)	国会議員	국회의원	议员
Committee	委員会	위원회	委员会
Coalition	連立	연립	联盟
Opposition	野党	야당	反对党
Election	選挙	선거	选举
Voting	投票	투표	投票

C. OSINT & Intelligence Terms

English	Swedish	German	French	Spanish	Arabic
OSINT	OSINT	OSINT	OSINT	OSINT	استخبارات مفتوحة المصدر
Intelligence	Underrättelser	Intelligenz	Renseignement	Inteligencia	استخبارات
Monitoring	Övervakning	Überwachung	Surveillance	Monitoreo	مراقبة
Analysis	Analys	Analyse	Analyse	Análisis	تحليل
Risk Assessment	Riskbedömning	Risikobewertung	Évaluation des risques	Evaluación de riesgos	تقييم المخاطر
Transparency	Transparens	Transparenz	Transparence	Transparencia	شفافية

D. Technical & Security Terms

English	Swedish	German	French	Spanish
Security	Säkerhet	Sicherheit	Sécurité	Seguridad
Compliance	Efterlevnad	Compliance	Conformité	Cumplimiento
ISO 27001	ISO 27001	ISO 27001	ISO 27001	ISO 27001
NIST CSF	NIST CSF	NIST CSF	NIST CSF	NIST CSF
CIS Controls	CIS Controls	CIS Controls	CIS Controls	CIS Controls
DevSecOps	DevSecOps	DevSecOps	DevSecOps	DevSecOps
ISMS	ISMS	ISMS	SMSI	SGSI

E. Swedish Parliamentary Document Types (Riksdag API)

These terms appear in Riksdag API responses and MUST be translated accurately in news articles. The Swedish term is the doktyp field value. Never leave these untranslated.

Swedish	English	German	French	Spanish
Betänkande (bet)	Committee report	Ausschussbericht	Rapport de commission	Informe de comité
Proposition (prop)	Government bill	Regierungsvorlage	Projet de loi du gouvernement	Proyecto de ley gubernamental
Motion (mot)	Parliamentary motion	Parlamentarischer Antrag	Motion parlementaire	Moción parlamentaria
Interpellation (ip)	Interpellation	Interpellation	Interpellation	Interpelación
Skriftlig fråga (fr)	Written question	Schriftliche Anfrage	Question écrite	Pregunta escrita
Votering	Division/Vote	Abstimmung	Vote/Scrutin	Votación
Anförande	Parliamentary speech	Parlamentsrede	Discours parlementaire	Discurso parlamentario
Riksdagsskrivelse (rskr)	Parliamentary communication	Reichstagsschreiben	Communication parlementaire	Comunicación parlamentaria

Swedish	Danish	Norwegian	Finnish	Dutch
Betänkande	Udvalgsbetænkning	Komitéinnstilling	Valiokunnan mietintö	Commissieverslag
Proposition	Regeringsforslag	Regjeringsforslag	Hallituksen esitys	Wetsvoorstel
Motion	Beslutningsforslag	Representantforslag	Lakialoite	Parlementaire motie
Interpellation	Forespørgsel	Interpellasjon	Välikysymys	Interpellatie
Skriftlig fråga	Skriftligt spørgsmål	Skriftlig spørsmål	Kirjallinen kysymys	Schriftelijke vraag
Votering	Afstemning	Votering	Äänestys	Stemming
Anförande	Tale	Innlegg	Puheenvuoro	Toespraak

Swedish	Arabic	Hebrew	Japanese	Korean	Chinese
Betänkande	تقرير اللجنة	דוח ועדה	委員会報告	위원회 보고서	委员会报告
Proposition	مشروع قانون حكومي	הצעת חוק ממשלתית	政府法案	정부 법안	政府法案
Motion	اقتراح برلماني	הצעה פרלמנטרית	議会動議	의회 동의	议会动议
Interpellation	استجواب	אינטרפלציה	質問主意書	대정부질문	质询
Skriftlig fråga	سؤال مكتوب	שאילתה	書面質問	서면질의	书面质询
Votering	تصويت	הצבעה	採決	표결	表决
Anförande	خطاب برلماني	נאום פרלמנטרי	国会演説	의회 연설	议会发言

F. Riksdag Committee Abbreviations

Committee abbreviations (e.g., FiU, SoU) appear in document references like "Bet. 2025/26:FiU10". Keep abbreviations as-is in document references, but translate committee names in running text.

Abbreviation	Swedish Name	English
FiU	Finansutskottet	Finance Committee
SoU	Socialutskottet	Social Affairs Committee
JuU	Justitieutskottet	Justice Committee
CU	Civilutskottet	Civil Affairs Committee
UU	Utrikesutskottet	Foreign Affairs Committee
FöU	Försvarsutskottet	Defence Committee
KU	Konstitutionsutskottet	Constitutional Committee
KrU	Kulturutskottet	Cultural Affairs Committee
MJU	Miljö- och jordbruksutskottet	Environment and Agriculture Committee
NU	Näringsutskottet	Industry Committee
SkU	Skatteutskottet	Tax Committee
SfU	Socialförsäkringsutskottet	Social Insurance Committee
TU	Trafikutskottet	Transport Committee
UbU	Utbildningsutskottet	Education Committee
AU	Arbetsmarknadsutskottet	Labour Market Committee

G. Common Policy Terms from Riksdag API

Swedish	English	Notes
Statlig personal	Government personnel	Civil servants
Bostadsrätt	Tenant-ownership / Housing cooperative	Swedish housing form
Föräldrapenning	Parental allowance	Social insurance benefit
Djurskydd	Animal welfare/protection	Regulatory area
Fribeloppet	Earning threshold	Tax-free amount for students/pensioners
Tidöavtalet	The Tidö Agreement	2022 governing agreement (M, KD, L, SD)
Riksrevisionen	Swedish National Audit Office	Keep "Riksrevisionen" in parentheses
Riksbanken	Sveriges Riksbank	Sweden's central bank
Statsråd	Cabinet minister	Member of the government
Regeringskansliet	Government Offices of Sweden	Administrative apparatus

🔄 Cultural Adaptations

Date Formats

Region	Format	Example
US (English)	MM/DD/YYYY	02/05/2026
EU (Most)	DD/MM/YYYY	05/02/2026
Sweden	YYYY-MM-DD	2026-02-05
ISO 8601	YYYY-MM-DD	2026-02-05 (preferred)
Arabic	DD/MM/YYYY or ٥ فبراير ٢٠٢٦	Both Western & Arabic-Indic
Japanese	YYYY年MM月DD日	2026年2月5日
Chinese	YYYY年MM月DD日	2026年2月5日
Korean	YYYY년 MM월 DD일	2026년 2월 5일

Number Formats

Region	Thousands	Decimal	Example
US/UK	, (comma)	. (period)	1,000.50
EU (Most)	. (period) or space	, (comma)	1.000,50 or 1 000,50
Sweden	(space)	, (comma)	1 000,50
Arabic	Western or ١٬٠٠٠٫٥٠	Both formats

Currency

Language	Currency Symbol	Position	Example
Swedish	kr (SEK)	After amount	5 000 kr
European	€ (EUR)	After amount	5 000 €
US	$ (USD)	Before amount	$5,000
Arabic	ر.س (SAR)	After amount	٥٬٠٠٠ ر.س

🎨 RTL (Right-to-Left) Languages

Arabic (ar) & Hebrew (he)

HTML Declaration:

<html lang="ar" dir="rtl">
<!-- or -->
<html lang="he" dir="rtl">

CSS Handling: The styles.css file includes comprehensive RTL support:

Text alignment: right
Flex direction: row-reverse for navigation
List padding: right instead of left
Form field alignment: right
Breadcrumb arrows: reversed (←)

Font Families:

Arabic: Noto Sans Arabic, Tahoma, Arial
Hebrew: Noto Sans Hebrew, Arial Hebrew, David

Special Considerations:

URLs remain LTR (left-to-right)
Code blocks remain LTR
Email addresses remain LTR
Technical terms (e.g., "CIA", "OSINT") remain in Latin script

📏 Quality Standards

Translation Completeness Checklist

All HTML meta tags translated (title, description, keywords)
All Open Graph tags translated
All Twitter Card metadata translated
All Schema.org structured data translated
All visible page content translated
All button/CTA text translated
All navigation links translated
All footer text translated
All breadcrumb labels translated

Technical Requirements

lang attribute correct on <html> tag
dir="rtl" present for Arabic/Hebrew
Proper font families loaded (Google Fonts)
Hreflang tags present for all languages
Canonical URL correct
Schema.org inLanguage property set

Accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA)

Proper heading hierarchy (h1 → h2 → h3)
Alt text translated for images
ARIA labels translated
Form labels translated
Keyboard navigation working
Screen reader compatible

🔗 SEO & Hreflang Tags

Standard Hreflang Implementation

Each language file must include hreflang tags for all 14 languages plus x-default:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="sv" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_sv.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="da" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_da.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="no" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_no.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fi" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_fi.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_de.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_fr.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_es.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="nl" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_nl.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="ar" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_ar.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="he" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_he.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="ja" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_ja.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="ko" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_ko.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="zh" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index_zh.html">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://riksdagsmonitor.com/index.html">

🔍 Translation Validation

Automated Checks

Run these commands before committing translations:

# HTML validation
htmlhint *.html

# Main site translations (index files)
npm run validate-translations

# News article translations
npm run validate-news

# Run all validation checks together
npm run validate-all

# Check language attributes
for file in index*.html; do 
  echo "=== $file ==="
  grep 'lang=' "$file" | head -1
done

# Check RTL attributes
grep 'dir="rtl"' index_ar.html index_he.html

# Link checking
python3 -m http.server 8080 &
linkinator http://localhost:8080/ --recurse

Translation Validation for News Articles

News articles are generated by agentic workflows with Swedish content from the Riksdag API. These workflows must translate all Swedish content to the target language.

Check for untranslated markers:

# Validate all news articles
npm run validate-news

# Check specific articles
node scripts/validate-news-translations.js news/

# Look for untranslated markers manually
grep -r 'data-translate="true"' news/*.html

Expected output if validation passes:

✓ Fully translated: N (number of articles)
✅ ALL ARTICLES FULLY TRANSLATED

If validation fails, you'll see:

✗ 2026-02-15-committee-reports-de.html (DE)
  Found 10 untranslated marker(s)
  Samples:
    1. "Bättre förutsättningar att sända ut statlig personal"
    2. "Ett register för alla bostadsrätter"

To fix untranslated markers:

Open the file listed
Find <span data-translate="true" lang="sv">Swedish text</span>
Translate the Swedish text to the article's language
Replace: <span data-translate="true" lang="sv">Swedish text</span> → Translated text
Consult Section E below for document type translations
Run npm run validate-news again to verify

Manual Review

Native speaker review (preferred)
Cultural appropriateness check
Technical term consistency
Political term accuracy
Security terminology correctness

📰 Political Intelligence Vocabulary (From News Articles)

This section contains real-world political terminology extracted from translated news articles, providing proven translations for political intelligence and parliamentary reporting.

F. News Article UI Labels

Standard labels used across all news article types:

English	Swedish	German	French	Spanish	Dutch	Danish	Norwegian	Finnish
Committee	Kommitté	Ausschuss	Commission	Comisión	Commissie	Udvalg	Komité	Valiokunta
Document	Dokument	Dokument	Document	Documento	Document	Dokument	Dokument	Asiakirja
What to Watch	Vad man ska följa	Was zu beobachten	À surveiller	Qué observar	Te volgen	Hvad man skal følge	Hva man skal følge	Mitä seurata
This Week	Denna vecka	Diese Woche	Cette semaine	Esta semana	Deze week	Denne uge	Denne uken	Tällä viikolla
Next Week	Nästa vecka	Nächste Woche	La semaine prochaine	La próxima semana	Volgende week	Næste uge	Neste uke	Ensi viikolla
Analysis	Analys	Analyse	Analyse	Análisis	Analyse	Analyse	Analyse	Analyysi
Evening Analysis	Kvällsanalys	Abendanalyse	Analyse du soir	Análisis vespertino	Avondanalyse	Aftenanalyse	Kveldsanalyse	Ilta-analyysi

G. Committee Report Terminology

Common phrases from committee reports:

English	Swedish	German	French
Better conditions for deploying government personnel	Bättre förutsättningar att sända ut statlig personal	Bessere Voraussetzungen für die Entsendung staatlichen Personals	Meilleures conditions pour le déploiement du personnel gouvernemental
A register for all condominiums	Ett register för alla bostadsrätter	Ein Register für alle Eigentumswohnungen	Un registre pour toutes les copropriétés
Animal welfare	Djurskydd	Tierschutz	Protection des animaux
Trade policy	Handelspolitik	Handelspolitik	Politique commerciale
Planning and construction	Planering och byggande	Planung und Bauwesen	Planification et construction

H. Political Process Terms

Key political process vocabulary from analysis articles:

Concept	English	Swedish	German	French	Spanish
Coalition	Coalition	Koalition	Koalition	Coalition	Coalición
Legislative analysis	Legislative analysis	Lagstiftningsanalys	Gesetzgebungsanalyse	Analyse législative	Análisis legislativo
Political risk	Political risk	Politisk risk	Politisches Risiko	Risque politique	Riesgo político
Government record	Government record	Regeringsprotokoll	Regierungsbilanz	Bilan gouvernemental	Registro del gobierno
Parliamentary priorities	Parliamentary priorities	Parlamentariska prioriteringar	Parlamentarische Prioritäten	Priorités parlementaires	Prioridades parlamentarias
Mid-session assessment	Mid-session assessment	Halvtidsbedömning	Halbzeitbewertung	Évaluation à mi-session	Evaluación a mitad de período

I. CJK and RTL Language Vocabulary

For Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and Hebrew:

Chinese (简体中文)

委员会 (Committee)
文件 (Document)
本周关注 (What to Watch This Week)
改善国家工作人员外派条件 (Better conditions for deploying government personnel)
所有产权公寓登记制度 (A register for all condominiums)
动物保护 (Animal welfare)

Japanese (日本語)

委員会 (Committee)
文書 (Document)
今週の注目 (What to Watch This Week)
国家公務員の海外派遣条件の改善 (Better conditions for deploying government personnel)
全分譲住宅の登録制度 (A registry for all condominiums)
動物福祉 (Animal welfare)

Korean (한국어)

위원회 (Committee)
문서 (Document)
이번 주 주목사항 (What to Watch This Week)
국가 공무원 파견 조건 개선 (Better conditions for deploying government personnel)
모든 분양주택 등록 제도 (A registry for all condominiums)
동물 복지 (Animal welfare)

Arabic (العربية)

لجنة (Committee)
وثيقة (Document)
ما يجب متابعته هذا الأسبوع (What to Watch This Week)
ظروف أفضل لإرسال الموظفين الحكوميين (Better conditions for deploying government personnel)
سجل لجميع حقوق الملكية السكنية (A registry for all condominiums)
رعاية الحيوان (Animal welfare)

Hebrew (עברית)

ועדה (Committee)
מסמך (Document)
על מה לעקוב השבוע (What to Watch This Week)
תנאים טובים יותר לשליחת עובדי מדינה (Better conditions for deploying government personnel)
מרשם לכל דירות הבעלות (A registry for all condominiums)
רווחת בעלי חיים (Animal welfare)

J. Article Type Classifications

Standard article type names across languages:

Type	English	Swedish	German	French	Spanish
Committee Reports	Committee Reports	Utskottsbetänkanden	Ausschussberichte	Rapports de commission	Informes de comisión
Propositions	Government Propositions	Propositioner	Regierungsvorlagen	Propositions gouvernementales	Proposiciones gubernamentales
Motions	Opposition Motions	Motioner	Anträge	Motions	Mociones
Evening Analysis	Evening Analysis	Kvällsanalys	Abendanalyse	Analyse du soir	Análisis vespertino
Week Ahead	Week Ahead	Veckan som kommer	Kommende Woche	La semaine à venir	La semana próxima

K. Temporal Expressions

Time-related vocabulary from news articles:

English	Swedish	German	French	Spanish	Dutch
Today	Idag	Heute	Aujourd'hui	Hoy	Vandaag
Tomorrow	Imorgon	Morgen	Demain	Mañana	Morgen
This week	Denna vecka	Diese Woche	Cette semaine	Esta semana	Deze week
Next week	Nästa vecka	Nächste Woche	La semaine prochaine	La próxima semana	Volgende week
Last week	Förra veckan	Letzte Woche	La semaine dernière	La semana pasada	Vorige week
Spring recess	Våruppehåll	Frühjahrspause	Pause de printemps	Receso de primavera	Voorjaarsreces
Mid-session	Halvtid	Halbzeit	Mi-session	Mitad de período	Halverweg
Parliamentary week	Parlamentsvecka	Parlamentswoche	Semaine parlementaire	Semana parlamentaria	Parlementaire week

L. Context-Specific Translation Notes

Formal vs. Informal Register:

All political news uses formal register across all languages
"You" → Swedish "ni" (not "du"), German "Sie" (not "du"), French "vous" (not "tu")
Journalistic third-person perspective maintained

Cultural Sensitivities:

Political party names: Always use Swedish abbreviations (S, M, SD, V, MP, C, L, KD)
Riksdag: Keep in Swedish (don't translate to "Parliament" in running text)
Tidö Agreement: Proper noun, always "Tidö-avtalet" or "Tidö Agreement"
Committee codes: Keep Swedish (SoU, FiU, CU, etc.) in document references

Number Formatting:

English: 1,000.50 (comma thousands, period decimal)
Swedish/German/Nordic: 1 000,50 (space thousands, comma decimal)
French: 1 000,50 (space thousands, comma decimal)
Arabic: ١٬٠٠٠٫٥٠ (Arabic-Indic numerals optional, comma thousands, period decimal)

Date Formatting:

English: February 15, 2026
Swedish: 15 februari 2026
German: 15. Februar 2026
French: 15 février 2026
Spanish: 15 de febrero de 2026
Japanese: 2026年2月15日
Chinese: 2026年2月15日
Korean: 2026년 2월 15일
Arabic: ١٥ فبراير ٢٠٢٦
Hebrew: 15 בפברואר 2026

📚 Reference Documents

External Translation Guides

Riksdagsmonitor follows Hack23's comprehensive translation standards:

Homepage Repository: Hack23/homepage
Arabic Translation Guide: Arabic-Translation-Guide.md
Chinese Translation Guide: Chinese-Translation-Guide.md
Korean Translation Guide: Korean-Translation-Guide.md
Spanish Translation Guide: Spanish-Translation-Guide.md
Swedish Translation Guide: Swedish terminology embedded in this guide

W3C Standards

ARCHITECTURE.md - System architecture
SECURITY_ARCHITECTURE.md - Security controls
README.md - Project overview
SKILLS.md - Multi-language localization skill

🤝 Contributing Translations

Translation Workflow

Setup

git clone git@github.com:Hack23/riksdagsmonitor.git
cd riksdagsmonitor
git checkout -b translation/[language-code]

Edit Language File
- Copy structure from index.html (English master)
- Update <html lang="xx"> attribute
- Add dir="rtl" for Arabic/Hebrew
- Translate all content using glossary
- Maintain HTML structure and classes
Validate
```
htmlhint index_[language-code].html
```

Test Locally

python3 -m http.server 8080
# Open http://localhost:8080/index_[language-code].html

Submit Pull Request
- Descriptive commit message
- Reference translation guide
- Include native speaker review (if possible)

Translation Maintenance

Review translations quarterly
Update when source content changes
Monitor user feedback
Track translation quality metrics

📊 Translation Status Dashboard

Completeness Metrics

Language	Translation	Hreflang	RTL Support	Font Loading	Status
English (en)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete
Swedish (sv)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete
Danish (da)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete
Norwegian (no)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete
Finnish (fi)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete
German (de)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete
French (fr)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete
Spanish (es)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete
Dutch (nl)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete
Arabic (ar)	100%	✅	✅	✅	✅ Complete
Hebrew (he)	100%	✅	✅	✅	✅ Complete
Japanese (ja)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete
Korean (ko)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete
Chinese (zh)	100%	✅	N/A	✅	✅ Complete

Overall Status: ✅ 100% Complete (14/14 languages)

🔐 Security & Compliance

ISMS Alignment

This translation guide aligns with Hack23's Information Security Management System:

ISO 27001:2022 - Asset management (language files)
NIST CSF 2.0 - Governance (translation standards)
CIS Controls v8.1 - Data protection (multi-language support)

Content Security

No secrets in translation files
Sanitized user input (if forms added)
XSS protection in all languages
CSP headers consistent across languages

📞 Support

Questions about translations?

GitHub Issues: Hack23/riksdagsmonitor/issues
Email: pether@hack23.com
LinkedIn: James Pether Sörling

Document Control
Version: 1.0
Last Updated: 2026-02-05
Next Review: 2026-05-05 (Quarterly)
Owner: Hack23 AB
Classification: Public

🔗 Hack23 Ecosystem

🌐 Platforms	📦 Open-Source Projects	🛡️ Governance & Standards
🗳️ Riksdagsmonitor — Swedish Parliament intelligence 🇪🇺 EU Parliament Monitor — European coverage 🕵️ Citizen Intelligence Agency — political-data engine 🌐 Hack23 AB — corporate site 📰 Hack23 Blog — engineering & policy 💼 Hack23 on LinkedIn	🗳️ Hack23/riksdagsmonitor 🕵️ Hack23/cia 🇪🇺 Hack23/euparliamentmonitor 🔌 Hack23/european-parliament-mcp ✅ Hack23/cia-compliance-manager 🥋 Hack23/black-trigram 🏠 Hack23/homepage	🛡️ Hack23 ISMS-PUBLIC — public ISMS 🔒 Information Security Policy 🤖 AI Policy 🧪 Secure Development Policy 🎯 Threat Modeling Policy ⚠️ Vulnerability Management 🏷️ Classification Framework

🗳️ Empower citizens · 🔍 Strengthen democratic accountability · 🕵️ Illuminate the political process