Style Rules for AI

What are Style Rules for AI?

Style Rules for AI are a collection of stylistic translation guidelines in an AI-friendly format.

They can be referenced by Large Language Models and are designed to enhance the performance of AI-powered workflows.

Note: Style Rules for AI cannot be referenced by human linguists in the CAT Tool. They do not replace or overwrite your Style Guide(s).

Default and custom Style Rules for AI

There are two types of Style Rules for AI:

1. Smartling's default style rules

Smartling provides default style rules for selected target locales*, which are generated automatically. These are linguistic conventions that capture locale-specific nuances, such as the correct punctuation rules or date format, for each target locale.

For rule categories and locales where default rule text is available, it can be viewed in the Smartling dashboard.

*Default style rules are available for translations from English into the following target locales:
Arabic (International) [ar], Chinese (China-Simplified) [zh-CN], Chinese (Hong Kong) [zh-HK], Chinese (Taiwan-Traditional) [zh-TW], Czech (International) [cs], Danish [da], Dutch (Netherlands) [nl-NL], English (United Kingdom) [en-GB], Finnish (Finland) [fi-FI], French (Canada) [fr-CA], French (France) [fr-FR], French (International) [fr], German (Germany) [de-DE], German (International) [de], Greek (Greece) [el-GR], Hebrew (he) [he], Hungarian (International) [hu], Italian (Italy) [it-IT], Japanese (Japan) [ja-JP], Korean (South Korea) [ko-KR], Norwegian [no], Polish (International) [pl], Portuguese (Brazil) [pt-BR], Portuguese (Portugal) [pt-PT], Romanian (International) [ro], Russian (Russia) [ru-RU], Slovak (Slovakia) [sk-SK], Slovenian (Slovenia) [sl-SI], Spanish (International) [es], Spanish (Latin America) [es-LA], Spanish (Mexico) [es-MX], Spanish (Spain) [es-ES], Swedish (International) [sv], Turkish (International) [tr].

2. Custom Style Rules for AI

In addition to Smartling's default Style Rules, Smartling’s expert team can implement customized rules to capture information that is specific to your organization, like your organization's domain, intended audience and desired overall tone.

Custom style rules can also be used to overwrite Smartling's default rules if they don't accurately capture your preferences. This is typically done if specific issues have occurred in your AI translations that may need to be addressed by providing information about your company's translation preferences.

Warning: Please note that the creation of custom Style Rules for AI is a paid service. Custom Style Rules for AI are set up exclusively by Smartling's expert team. For more information, contact your Customer Success Manager.

Within each rule set, any custom Style Rules for AI are clearly labeled as "Customized". For more information, see Style Rules for AI details page.

How to access Style Rules for AI

Style Rules for AI can be viewed by Account Owners and Project Managers in the Smartling dashboard:

From your Account Settings, navigate to the Linguistic Assets.
From the menu on the left-hand side, click into Style Rules for AI.

This takes you to a list view, displaying the following information for all available rule sets:

Name: The name given to a set of Style Rules for AI.
Source locale / target locale: Style Rules for AI are created for a specific language pair, consisting of one source language (e.g., English) and one target locale (e.g., fr-FR).

Tip: The source language is locale-agnostic. Style Rules for AI using English [en] as their source language can be used for translations in projects with any English source locale. For example: en-GB, en, or en-US source projects can all read from English [en] source Style Rules for AI.
The target language is locale-specific, and only the Style Rules for the exact locale you are translating into will be applied.

Linguistic Packages:
- A set of Style Rules is typically created on an account level, which means that it is applied to all qualifying AI translations in your account. If this is the case, the label "Account Level" is displayed under the "Linguistic Packages" column.
- Alternatively, custom Style Rules for AI can be associated with specific Linguistic Packages only. If this is the case, the "Linguistic Packages" column displays a list of all Linguistic Packages which the Style Rules for AI are associated with.

Note: Each language pair can have only one account-level rule set, and as many additional rule sets for specific Linguistic Packages as required.
During the translation process, Style Rules for AI associated with a specific Linguistic Package take precedence over account-level Style Rules for AI.

Actions: From the Actions menu, Style Rules for AI can be downloaded.

Info: Please note that the download of Style Rules for AI is intended for view-only purposes only. Any edits can only be made by Smartling's expert team. If any edits are needed or updated Style Rules for AI should be generated for one of your locale pairs, please contact your Smartling Customer Success Manager.

Style Rules for AI details page

Click on the name of the set of Style Rules you would like to view. This will take you to the details page, where a list of all available rule categories is shown.

The details page displays the following information:

Name: The name given to a set of Style Rules for AI.
Source locale / target locale: Style Rules for AI are created for a specific language pair, consisting of one source language (e.g., English) and one target locale (e.g., fr-FR).
Linguistic Packages: Displays the name(s) of the specific Linguistic Package(s) that the rule set is associated with. Alternatively, the label "Account Level" is displayed for rule sets that are applied on an account level.
Created By: The user who created the rule set.
Date Modified: If a rule set was customized, the date of the last modification is shown in this column.
Rule text for each category: Each rule category can be expanded to display the rule text.
- Default rule text provided by Smartling is displayed for supported locales and rule categories.
- Custom rule text is labeled as "Customized". Example:
- For categories with empty rule text, the category name is displayed, and the indication "No rule text provided" is shown.

Tip: Please note that default rule text is not available for all categories (see information on rule categories below). Some categories are only available for customized rule text. To create custom Style Rules for AI for any empty categories, please contact your Smartling representative.

Search and filters

The search field on the details page allows you to look for specific rule categories by name, or search for specific rule text.
To display only custom Style Rules for AI, click the checkbox "Show only customized rules".

Rule categories

In order be easily readable by Large Language Models, Style Rules for AI follow a structured format with strictly defined rule categories.

See below a full list of all available rule categories.

Note: Please note that it is not possible to add additional categories beyond the ones listed below.

Linguistic Style Rules

These rule categories capture linguistic preferences for each target locale.
Smartling provides default rules for selected categories*. Custom Style Rules for AI can be provided to overwrite the default rules, or to set up additional rules.

*For selected language pairs.

Rule Category	Definition	Smartling default Style Rules available?
Abbreviations / Acronyms	Shortened forms of words or organizations. Example: “ASAP”, “Dr.”, “NASA”. Note: For features using RAG technology (e.g., Smartling Auto Select LLM and prompt tooling with RAG), only custom rule text is supported for this category.	Yes
Addresses / Phone Numbers (PII)	Mentions of specific personal information. Example: “+1 123-456-7890”, “51 Main Street”, “John Smith”. Note: For features using RAG technology (e.g., Smartling Auto Select LLM and prompt tooling with RAG), only custom rule text is supported for this category.	Yes
Articles	Presence of definite/indefinite articles. Example: “the”, “a”, “an”; French “l’homme”.	Custom only
Call to Action	Imperative instructions or action prompts. Example: “Click here”, “Follow these steps”.	Custom only
Capitalization	Use of unusual capitalization. Example: “WELCOME”, “WeLcOmE”.	Yes
Colloquial Expressions / Slang	Informal or figurative expressions. Example: “spill the tea”, “hang out”, “cost an arm and a leg”.	Custom only
Compounds	Compound words or multi-part terms. Example: “sunglasses”, “mother-in-law”.	Custom only
Contractions	Use of shortened forms. Example: “can’t”, “I’m”, “she’d”.	Custom only
Cultural References	Mentions of culture-specific events, figures, or traditions. Example: “Thanksgiving”, “Super Bowl”, “Beyoncé”.	Custom only
Currency	References to money. Example: “$5”, “USD 20”.	Yes
Dates	Date formats and mentions of days/months/years. Example: “Jan 5”, “5/8/2025”.	Yes
Degrees / Strength of Comparison	Comparative and superlative usage. Example: “better” vs. “best”, “happier” vs. “happiest”.	Custom only
Formatting / Miscellaneous	Rules for headers, lists, bullet points, indents, line breaks, etc. Example: whether to use sentence case vs. title case for headings. This rule category can also be used for miscellaneous rules, which do not fit into any of the other categories.	Custom only
Geographical References	Mentions of countries, cities, or regions. Example: “Paris”, “California”, “Asia”.	Custom only
Inclusivity	References to accessibility, diversity, or gender neutrality. Example: “they/them pronouns”, “person with a disability”.	Custom only
Numbers	Use of numeric values (excluding dates, currency, time, units). Example: “123”, “1,000”.	Yes
Placeholders / Variables	Dynamic placeholders. Example: “%s”, “{username}”.	Custom only
Plurality	How plural forms should be handled across locales. Example: “1 file” vs. “2 files” vs. locale-specific plural forms.	Custom only
Pronouns	Personal pronouns. Example: “I”, “she”, “they”.	Custom only
Punctuation: Period	Use of full stops. Example: “This is a sentence.”	Yes
Punctuation: Comma	Use of commas. Example: “apples, oranges, and bananas”.	Yes
Punctuation: Exclamation/Question Mark	Use of ! or ?. Example: “What’s happening?”	Yes
Punctuation: Quotes	Use of quotation marks. Example: “Hello”, ‘Hello’, «Bonjour».	Yes
Punctuation: Other	Other punctuation marks. Example: colons (:), dashes (–), brackets ({} []).	Yes
SEO / Keywords	Terms used for search optimization. Example: “easy vegetarian recipes”, “running shoes”.	Custom only
Standard Error Messages	Common system error text. Example: “An error occurred, please try again”.	Custom only
Symbols	Use of non-alphanumeric symbols. Example: @, #, %, &, . *	Yes
Syntactic Ordering / Sentence Structure	Preferred sentence structure and word order. Example: adjective–noun order in English vs. noun–adjective in Romance languages.	Custom only
Time	Time formats. Example: “12:30 PM”, “18:15”.	Yes
Type of Content	Identifies the content domain. Example: product description, promotional text, instructions, legal disclaimer.	Custom only
Units of Measurement	Units such as cm, in, ºC. Example: “20 cm”, “5 kg”.	Yes
Verb Forms	Variations or mismatches in tense, aspect, or conjugation between source and translation. Example: “to create” vs. “created”.	Custom only

Rule Category	Definition	Example Style Rule / Additional information	Smartling default Style Rules available?
Industry/Domain	A one or two sentence description of your company, which industry it operates in, and what it does.	Example: Smartling is a cloud-based translation technology and language services company that helps businesses automate and manage the translation and localization of their digital content. It provides an AI-powered platform with tools to streamline the entire translation process, from content creation to delivery, ensuring high-quality translations at a reduced cost and turnaround time.	No
Audience	Defines the intended reader (demographics, technical expertise, cultural context). Example: content aimed at developers vs. end-users.	Example: Our user is a localization or marketing professional, a key decision-maker responsible for the successful global expansion of their company's brand. They are tech-savvy and data-driven, constantly seeking innovative solutions to streamline the translation and localization workflow, improve quality, and maximize the ROI of their efforts.	No
Tone	Defines the appropriate tone of voice (e.g., casual, friendly, technical). Example: “Please submit your request” vs. “Go ahead and send us your request!”	Example: The Smartling marketing website has a confident and professional tone, focused on efficiency and results. It speaks directly to the needs of its audience by highlighting the platform's ability to automate workflows, ensure brand consistency, and deliver high-quality translations at scale.	No
Formality	The definition of the formality register.	If a style guide using the Smartling template has been set up, this rule checks for the desired formality register: Formal or informal. For languages where this is not applicable, a single formality register is used.	Yes

Get answers instantly