Creating a translation style guide and terminology glossary is crucial for ensuring consistency and accuracy in translated and localised content.
These resources help your Language Services Provider (LSP) understand your preferred style, tone of voice, visual representations, brand elements and usage of terminology specific to your brand, products or project.
Below you’ll find helpful insights into exactly what translation style guides and terminology glossaries are, why they are necessary, and how to create them.
What is a translation style guide?
A translation style guide is a set of guidelines and instructions designed by you for your LSP to ensure they achieve consistency and accuracy within your translation projects.
It serves as a reference for everyone connected with your project including relationships managers, project managers, translators, copywriters, and editors ensuring they maintain a consistent tone, style, and terminology throughout the entire project or projects.
The primary goal of a translation style guide is to produce high-quality translations that convey the intended meaning of the source text while aligning with the linguistic and cultural norms of the target audience, and incorporating your business’ vital brand elements.
What is a terminology glossary?
A translation terminology glossary is a database of terms frequently used within your business, by your customers, or in relation to your products or services.
It is formed from the foundation of your native-language website content, brochures or similar, and will be used as a reference guide by your LSP for translators and language professionals to ensure consistency and accuracy in the translation process.
This glossary may include technical terms, industry-specific jargon, and other language nuances relevant to your particular field, business or subject.
It will ensure uniformity and consistency throughout every translation project and every language.
How to create a translation style guide
As we’ve said above, the purpose of a style guide is to ensure your translation project is delivered exactly as you want it to be and contains all the elements your customers and clients would expect from your brand.
It is a guidebook or instruction manual for your LSP and should contain the following:
Translation project objectives and scope – here you need to set out your expectations for your translation project. Include information around the purpose, expectations, time constraints and so on. Consider which elements of the project are most important to you and list priorities.
Reference materials – give your LSP as much material as possible with examples of your native-language website, previous translation projects, product information and so on. Highlight aspects you prefer and especially areas that didn’t work for you in previous translation projects.
Establish tone and style – define the desired tone and style of the translated content. Include information on formality, voice, and any cultural nuances that should be considered.
Audience and target market – market research you have conducted or collated is helpful in establishing a clear market area for your LSP. The translators, project managers and editors can then work with this to ensure the translation project meets customer expectations.
Grammar and punctuation rules – while a translation style guide isn’t a spelling and punctuation checklist it should still include elements which outline your preferred grammar and punctuation rules, those which are specific to your brand or project. Consider preferred sentence structures, use of commas, or capitalisations, and other language-specific guidelines.
Visual aspects – these don’t just include the images you want to use but also refer to visual aspects such as, brand colour schemes, logos, preferred font use, design elements and layout of your website, and so on. Remember to provide all the reference materials to support these.
Formatting guidelines – specify how to handle formatting elements such as dates, numbers, and units of measurement so that they are culturally and regionally appropriate and consistent. Provide instructions for handling different types of content (e.g., headings, lists, tables).
How to create a translation terminology glossary
Your translation terminology glossary will be a comprehensive database to which your LSP will refer again and again within the translation process.
It should contain the terms frequently used within your business which will require translation (or not, as the case may be) including aspects such as, industry specific terminology, key terms, specific phrases, product names, and so on.
The following list gives an indication of what should be included within your terminology glossary:
Industry-related terminology – some industries have very involved and specific terminology (legal, medical, engineering, technological, or financial for instance) use highly-specialised language and terminology linked to them which requires knowledge of the industry for an accurate translation. Giving your LSP a complete list of these will help ensure a precise translation every time.
Similarly, other industries have specific terms which are used frequently, cropping up again and again, so it is time saving to give this list in advance.
Also, consider listing words which have more than one meaning (for example, ‘screen’ – to shelter or a TV screen) and give your desired definition to classify your intended meaning so that your LSP ensure a correct translation.
Company-related terminology – include a list (and definitions as required) of all words which are specific to your company, its products or services. Remember to add copyrighted terms or trademarks for which you do not require translation.
Audience-related terminology – include any research regarding terminology preferred by your target audience. Consider aspects such as, slang and colloquialisms which are in frequent use by your audience and which will encourage deeper engagement.
Keywords – this is often overlooked in glossaries but it is a vital aspect for ensuring that your translation project is on-point for SEO. Consider keywords, customer search parameters, SEO, and so on to ensure an accurate and valid translation.
Creating translation style guides and terminology glossaries will give your LSP a clearer impression of your brand, highlight your expectations for design and the project overall, and also help to minimise any rework or revisions required upon completion.
They can help reduce costs and time involved in the translation project as your LSP should have all the information they require to complete the project and won’t need to wait for queries to be answered – everyone working on the project will have access to the information they need.
At Creative Word, our relationship managers and project managers can advise you on particular aspects of your style guide, and our designers can help with design aspects linked to a specific language or culture.
If you are ready to proceed with an initial enquiry about your translation project you can contact a member of the team here, or check out our blog page for more help topics.
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