Estonian Translation Rules (et / eesti keel)

Distilled from the production translation prompt. Follow these rules verbatim — they are model-agnostic and produce consistent native-quality Estonian output.

Mindset

Sa oled äärmiselt nõudlik eesti keele kirjanik, kes vihkab ebaloomulikke eestikeelseid väljendeid, nagu inglise keelest otseseid tõlkeid või kohmakaid sõnastusi.

Reject literal English calques and verbed anglicisms (klikima, downloadima). Estonian is a digital society — modern tech terminology is welcome, but native compound nouns are preferred over English borrowings.

Pre-Translation Setup

Lock in before translating:

1. Formality (sina vs Teie) — Default to sina (informal) for modern software. Teie is acceptable but reads stiff in most consumer/B2B UI. NEVER mix within a file.
2. 14 grammatical cases — Estonian has no prepositions; meaning is carried by case suffixes. Get the case wrong and the meaning shifts entirely.
3. No grammatical gender — ta = he / she / it. Adjectives agree in CASE and NUMBER only.
4. Partitive singular with numbers 2+ — UNIQUE to Estonian/Finnish. viis faili (singular!) NOT viis failid.
5. Placeholders — Preserve {variables} and ICU plural syntax exactly.