Style Guides for Brand Voice
Your brand has a voice — and your translations should reflect it.
Taia allows you to define style guides to ensure consistency in tone, grammar, and writing style across all languages and content types.
📝 What is a Style Guide?
A style guide is a set of language-specific rules and preferences that define how your brand should communicate. It covers:
- Tone of voice (formal, informal, playful, etc.)
- Grammar conventions
- Sentence structure preferences
- Punctuation, casing, and formatting rules
- Localization notes (e.g., date formats, measurements, currency)
It complements your glossary and translation memory to ensure not just what you say is consistent — but how you say it.
🎯 Why Style Guides Matter
Without a style guide:
- Different translators may choose inconsistent tones or phrasing
- AI output may sound too generic or misaligned with your brand
- Your brand voice can feel disjointed across regions and campaigns
With a well-crafted style guide:
- Linguists know exactly how to translate your content
- AI translations become more aligned with your tone (especially when paired with glossaries)
- Customers feel your brand is cohesive across languages
⚙️ How Taia Uses Style Guides
Currently:
- Human linguists receive your style guide during every professional project
- Internal editors use it as a reference during post-editing
- AI output can be fine-tuned based on tone preferences (future release: dynamic tone adjustment based on your guide)
✍️ What to Include
Your style guide can be language-neutral or language-specific. We recommend including:
| Section | Example |
|---|---|
| Tone & Register | Use casual “you” (tu) in French, not formal “vous” |
| Sentence Length | Keep sentences under 20 words |
| Brand Voice | Friendly, clear, helpful (not overly technical) |
| Terminology Rules | Never translate “Pro Plan”, always keep it in English |
| Formatting Rules | Use smart quotes, no Oxford comma |
| Language-specific | In German, avoid noun stacking; prefer active voice |
We provide templates to help you get started.
🧩 Relationship to Glossary and TM
- Glossary ensures the right words are used
- Style Guide ensures the right tone and phrasing
- Translation Memory ensures past translations are reused consistently
Together, they form the foundation of a scalable localization system.
🧠 Style Guide Tips
- Create one core style guide per language
- Update guides based on reviewer/linguist feedback
- Keep examples brief but illustrative
- Avoid vague instructions (e.g. “sound professional” → define what that means)
🧰 Coming Soon
- AI tone customization based on your style guide
- Real-time tone analysis in the CAT Editor
- Glossary + style guide package exports for sharing externally
Want help creating your style guide?
Contact us or explore our downloadable templates in the project dashboard.