Bilingual gate — when both languages are required
The bilingual gate is the rule that says a community submission must have both English and Urdu versions to be promoted to the official question set. At submit time, you can submit a single-language version with "translate later" checked. At promote-to-official time, the gate enforces both.
TL;DR — Submit single-language is fine for voting and chapter visibility. Both languages are required for the admin to promote your submission to the default-tested official set. Translate later is supported.
Why the gate exists
ImtehanHub is bilingual end-to-end (see Bilingual model). Every official class, subject, chapter, and question carries both name/urduName and text/urduText. Promoting a single-language community submission would create gaps in the official set — Urdu-only students suddenly seeing English questions, or vice versa.
Two implementation reasons:
- Auto-graded fairness. A Short question with only an English model answer auto-grades incorrectly for a student writing in Urdu.
- AI translation is not safe enough. Running an LLM to backfill the missing language has a 5-10% error rate on technical content (formulas, named entities, board-specific phrasing). The bilingual gate forces a human translator in the loop.
Submit-time vs promote-time
| Stage | English required? | Urdu required? |
|---|---|---|
| Submit (with "translate later" checked) | One of the two | One of the two |
| Submit (without "translate later") | Yes | Yes |
| Voting eligibility (net 10, gross 15, no flags) | Whatever was submitted | Whatever was submitted |
| Appears in source picker for tests | Yes (single-language is enough) | Yes (single-language is enough) |
| Promote to official | Yes — required | Yes — required |
So a single-language submission can:
- Receive votes.
- Cross the eligibility threshold.
- Appear in tests via the source picker when students opt for community questions.
But it cannot become default-tested official content until the missing language is filled in.
How "translate later" works
When you check "I'll translate later" on the submission form:
- One of the two language fields is allowed to be empty (or set to "translation pending").
- The submission is created with a
translationStatus: 'pending-{language}'flag. - It appears in your "My submissions" list with a badge "Translation pending".
- Other verified members in the Linguist track (community achievement) see it in their "Help translate" queue.
You can return at any time and add the missing translation yourself. Or a Linguist may translate it.
Who can translate
Three paths:
- The original submitter — opens their submission and adds the missing language. No verification needed beyond their own.
- A Linguist achievement holder — community member with the Linguist achievement (earned by N successful translations passing the bilingual gate) can volunteer.
- An admin — admins can translate any submission directly.
Every translation goes through the same form. The translator is named separately from the original author on the submission record.
What counts as "both languages present"
The bilingual gate checks that:
- The question text is present in both languages.
- For MCQ: all four options are present in both.
- For Short / Long: the model answer is present in both.
- For chapter explanations: the body is present in both, with at least 80% overlap in section structure.
The check is structural, not semantic — a translation that is structurally complete but semantically lazy (literal word-for-word that loses meaning) can still pass the gate but is likely to be flagged by users on quality grounds.
What if the submission is in only Urdu?
Same rules apply with the languages swapped. ImtehanHub does not privilege English — many Class 5-8 Urdu-medium students prefer to write in Urdu first. The gate enforces both languages regardless of which one was submitted first.
Promotion to official also requires no active flags
In addition to bilingual completeness, promote-to-official requires:
- The submission has crossed the eligibility threshold (net 10, gross 15).
activeFlagCount === 0— no open flags.- An admin's explicit approval.
So the bilingual gate is necessary but not sufficient for promotion.
Common questions
What if my translation has minor errors?
Submit it. Other students will flag specific issues; you can fix them.
Can I submit Urdu first and translate to English later?
Yes — the gate is symmetric.
Does the bilingual gate apply to comments?
No. Comments can be in any single language.
Does it apply to flag reasons?
No. Flag reasons can be in any single language; moderators understand both.
Is there a bilingual gate for the chapter explanation's body?
Yes — both languages required for promotion. But chapter explanations are not promoted into the question pool (they are public-facing study aids), so the practical impact is that single-language explanations stay community-only and do not appear on the chapter's "Official explanations" surface.
What about questions in Pashto / Punjabi / Sindhi?
Currently out of scope. ImtehanHub is bilingual (Urdu + English) end-to-end. Regional-language support is on the post-V2 roadmap.
Next
- Submitting an MCQ — the form has the "translate later" checkbox.
- Promote to official — the admin flow that the gate guards.
- Bilingual model — the broader design rationale in Core Concepts.