Along with a glossary, a style guide can be one of your best friends when it comes to professional translations.
A style guide is essentially a list of instructions that can be used during a translation project by the linguists. It can refer to everything from certain terminology usage, to orthography, to target audience and tone of voice.
It’s generally used as a measure to improve consistency of the translations, readability, branding within the translations, as well as to ensure the tone of voice and presentation of the translated content is on point.
A style guide can contain:
- Branding insights
- Tone of voice required
- Further information on the target audience and region
- Writing style goals
- Writing insights when talking to certain groups of people
- Terminology and language use
- Punctuation
- Grammar
- Syntax and punctuation guidelines
- Abbreviations and acronyms
- Capitalisation
- Preferred orthography
- Emphasis
- Lists and numbers
- Treatment of Date and time
- Examples and references for linguists
Style guides can also greatly affect the required turnaround time of a project. Linguists save time on their translations when there are pre-approved linguistic decisions concerning the above. Together with a glossary, they can greatly improve consistency of terminology translations and ultimately offer a better translation of the content at hand.
Until next time,
Jim
For more information, get in touch with Web-Lingo for 89 languages, a fast turnaround, a same-day quote and a personal service that is second to none.