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 used to enhance your LLM translations and AI-powered workflows, based on your company background and stylistic translation preferences.
Where can Style Rules for AI be used?
Style Rules for AI 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:
Smartling's default style rules
- Smartling provides default style rules for each supported target locale*, 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.
- Smartling's default style rules are not displayed as a linguistic asset, but are applied automatically with all qualifying translation options.
- *Default style rules are available for translations from English into the following target locales:
Spanish (International) [es], Spanish (Mexico) [es-MX], German (Germany) [de-DE], Portuguese (Portugal) [pt-PT], Portuguese (Brazil) [pt-BR], Italian (Italy) [it-IT], Japanese (Japan) [ja-JP], Korean (South Korea) [ko-KR], Chinese (China-Simplified) [zh-CN], Chinese (Taiwan-Traditional) [zh-TW], Chinese (Hong Kong) [zh-HK], Russian (Russia) [ru-RU], English (United Kingdom) [en-GB], Czech (International) [cs], Danish [da], Greek (Greece) [el-GR], Polish (International) [pl], Slovak (Slovakia) [sk-SK], Slovenian (Slovenia) [sl-SI], Swedish (International) [sv], Turkish (International) [tr], Hungarian (International) [hu], Norwegian [no], Romanian (International) [ro], Hebrew (he) [he], Arabic (International) [ar].
Custom Style Rules for AI
- In addition to Smartling's default style rules, Smartling’s expert team can implement custom 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 industry and domain, your audience and preferred tone, etc.
Warning: Please note that custom Style Rules for AI are a paid product, and are set up exclusively by Smartling's expert team. For more information, contact your Customer Success Manager.
Rule categories
See below a full list of all available rule categories.
Company information
The following rule categories describe your company's background, intended audience and preferred tone. Since this information is specific to your organization, Smartling does not provide any default rules for these categories. They are available as custom Style Rules only.
| Rule Category | Definition | Example Style Rule | Smartling default Style Rules available? | Supported by Auto Select LLM? |
| Audience | Defines the intended reader (demographics, technical expertise, cultural context). Example: content aimed at developers vs. end-users. |
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 | Yes |
| Domain | A one or two sentence description of your company, which industry it operates in, and what it does. |
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 | Yes |
| 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!” |
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 | Yes |
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? | Supported by Auto Select LLM? |
| Abbreviations / Acronyms | Shortened forms of words or organizations. Example: “ASAP”, “Dr.”, “NASA”. |
Yes | No |
| Addresses / Phone Numbers (PII) | Mentions of specific personal information. Example: “+1 123-456-7890”, “51 Main Street”, “John Smith”. |
Yes | No |
| Articles | Presence of definite/indefinite articles. Example: “the”, “a”, “an”; French “l’homme”. |
Custom only | Yes (locales: en, es, fr, de, it, pt, nl) |
| Call to Action | Imperative instructions or action prompts. Example: “Click here”, “Follow these steps”. |
Custom only | No |
| Capitalization | Use of unusual capitalization. Example: “WELCOME”, “WeLcOmE”. |
Yes | Yes |
| Colloquial Expressions / Slang | Informal or figurative expressions. Example: “spill the tea”, “hang out”, “cost an arm and a leg”. |
Custom only | No |
| Compounds | Compound words or multi-part terms. Example: “sunglasses”, “mother-in-law”. |
Custom only | No |
| Contractions | Use of shortened forms. Example: “can’t”, “I’m”, “she’d”. |
Custom only | Yes (locales: en, es, fr, de, it, pt, nl) |
| Cultural References | Mentions of culture-specific events, figures, or traditions. Example: “Thanksgiving”, “Super Bowl”, “Beyoncé”. |
Custom only | No |
| Currency | References to money. Example: “$5”, “USD 20”. |
Yes | Yes |
| Dates | Date formats and mentions of days/months/years. Example: “Jan 5”, “5/8/2025”. |
Yes | Yes |
| Degrees / Strength of Comparison | Comparative and superlative usage. Example: “better” vs. “best”, “happier” vs. “happiest”. |
Custom only | 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 (if a Style Guide using the Smartling template is available) | Yes |
| Formatting | 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 | Yes |
| Geographical References | Mentions of countries, cities, or regions. Example: “Paris”, “California”, “Asia”. |
Custom only | No |
| Inclusivity | References to accessibility, diversity, or gender neutrality. Example: “they/them pronouns”, “person with a disability”. |
Custom only | No |
| Numbers | Use of numeric values (excluding dates, currency, time, units). Example: “123”, “1,000”. |
Yes | Yes |
| Placeholders / Variables | Dynamic placeholders. Example: “%s”, “{username}”. |
Custom only | No |
| Plurality | How plural forms should be handled across locales. Example: “1 file” vs. “2 files” vs. locale-specific plural forms. |
Custom only | Yes |
| Pronouns | Personal pronouns. Example: “I”, “she”, “they”. |
Custom only | Yes (locales: en, es, fr, de, it, pt, nl) |
| Punctuation: Period | Use of full stops. Example: “This is a sentence.” |
Yes | Yes |
| Punctuation: Comma | Use of commas. Example: “apples, oranges, and bananas”. |
Yes | Yes |
| Punctuation: Exclamation/Question Mark | Use of ! or ?. Example: “What’s happening?” |
Yes | Yes |
| Punctuation: Quotes | Use of quotation marks. *Example: “Hello”, ‘Hello’, «Bonjour». * |
Yes | Yes |
| Punctuation: Other | Other punctuation marks. Example: colons (:), dashes (–), brackets ({} []). |
Yes | Yes |
| SEO / Keywords | Terms used for search optimization. Example: “easy vegetarian recipes”, “running shoes”. |
Custom only | No |
| Standard Error Messages | Common system error text. Example: “An error occurred, please try again”. |
Custom only | No |
| Symbols | Use of non-alphanumeric symbols. *Example: @, #, %, &, *. * |
Yes | 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 | Yes |
| Time | Time formats. Example: “12:30 PM”, “18:15”. |
Yes | Yes |
| Type of Content | Identifies the content domain. Example: product description, promotional text, instructions, legal disclaimer. |
Custom only | Yes |
| Units of Measurement | Units such as cm, in, ºC. Example: “20 cm”, “5 kg”. |
Yes | Yes |
| Verb Forms | Variations or mismatches in tense, aspect, or conjugation between source and translation. Example: “to create” vs. “created”. |
Custom only | No |