Picture this: you’ve been working for weeks to launch your outdoor or action sports brand’s international website. Multilingual social media campaigns are already up and running, and you and the team are ready to celebrate your hard work. But celebrations grind to a halt when you find out that your multilingual content is full of confusing discrepancies. Or, worse, your launch goes live and customer complaints start rolling in…
Product names are different from social media to the website. A jacket that’s only water-repellent has been described as waterproof. And customers can’t make heads or tails of your proprietary tech and acronyms.
Sounds like a nightmare, right? Fortunately, terminology management tools like glossaries, termbases and translation memories can help prevent these headaches. They consolidate accurate translations by recording and reusing them for future projects. And that helps you create consistent multilingual content across all communication channels.
Coherent messaging is key for building your brand’s reputation in foreign markets. And it's especially important for outdoor sports brands, where inconsistent translations of tech specs, patented systems or product names could prevent customers from finding the products they need to keep them safe while shredding or scaling a mountain.
In this guide, we’ll cover:
• What terminology management is
• What differentiates a glossary, a termbase and a translation memory
• How terminology management can benefit your outdoor sports brand and
• How to leverage technology to streamline your terminology management assets and processes
What is terminology management?
Terminology management refers to the recording, organizing and sharing of specific words or phrases used by a brand. These terms could include anything from product names to marketing slogans to technical features.
Effective terminology management results in a consistent brand image and user experience – season after season, across every channel. In addition to consistent translations, they also help with formatting. We know you work incredibly hard on your brand book, from setting fonts to colors to correct logo usage. But a consistent style might not hit as hard when fans see “2-way zips” on one jacket and “two-way zippers” on another. This applies to third-party tech, too. For example, should GORE-TEX be capitalized? Does it need a copyright symbol after the name?
Why does all that matter? First, brand and technology names are often copyrighted, so accuracy keeps you on the right side of the law. Plus, a consumer looking for the absolute best gear that meets all their tech-spec needs is likely to notice if you’re not dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s. And they’ll wonder where else you might be cutting corners.
So, how can you satisfy these tech-savvy consumers? How can you keep your terms consistent and your style secure? With terminology management strategies and tools. Let’s take a look at the most common ones: glossaries, termbases and translation memories.
Glossaries
This is the tool you’re probably most familiar with, and it’s the basic foundation of translation terminology management. A translation glossary is a document that lists terms and their translations, ready to be used alongside or within a Translation Management System (often referred to as a TMS).
Termbases
A termbase is a database containing terms and their translations as well as notes on context. Unlike a glossary, a termbase can only be accessed through a Translation Management System software and will automatically scan texts for known terms. Any words that have previously been saved to the termbase are then flagged during the translation process to ensure you’re choosing the correct term.
Termbases can be built manually or by importing a glossary into the program. As a project continues, new terms will be added to ensure future consistency.
Translation memories
A translation memory is another type of database used by TMS software; it includes whole sentences, segments and phrases that have been previously translated.
If the translation memory recognizes a full or partial match in a text, it automatically flags it. Your translation partner can then choose whether to use the previous translation (or part of it) in their work. This helps establish a consistent tone of voice across translated content.
How does a termbase work?
Termbases are used to speed up and improve the translation process by automatically recognizing previously translated text. This leaves you free to focus on new terms and descriptions so you can create first-rate content without expending unnecessary brainpower.
Here’s a breakdown of the process:
- Terminology storing and sharing - Glossaries of specific terms are imported into the termbase. Termbases can also be imported or exported for new projects or collaborators.
- Term recognition - The TMS will scan the text for any known terms and flag them during the translation process.
- Suggested translations - The termbase will suggest translations for any identified terminology, which can be easily inserted into the text using keyboard shortcuts.
Thanks to this process, there’s no need to manually search a glossary every time your translation provider comes across brand-specific language. And the auto-flagging keeps terms from flying under the radar, which means fewer mistranslations and inconsistencies. The end result? Better translations with a faster turnaround time.
Benefits of terminology management for action sports brands
So, now you know what terminology management is. But how is it especially helpful to you and your action sports brand?
Consistent brand messaging
When you need translations for multiple types of content, various channels and different markets, keeping track of terminology is key. Inconsistently translated product names, patented systems or technical specifications could result in ambiguity, confusion and potential misuse of products.
For example, knowing whether gear is actually waterproof makes a huge difference to an avid hiker. A waterproof jacket needs to have a certain water-column rating, taped seams and probably a hood. Otherwise, a windbreaker with a durable water-repellent coating might only be water resistant, not waterproof. But there are a few possible Spanish translations for “waterproof,” including “impermeable” and “resistente al agua.” And if you say it one way on Insta and another on your website, customers might start to doubt the reliability of your products.
Proper terminology management ensures that “waterproof” is always translated as “impermeable,” avoiding confusion and misunderstandings and giving consumers recognizable terms they’ll see in every launch. Terminology tools are also great for product names that should be carried over from season to season.
Terminology management is equally handy for the consistent use of inclusive language. Decisions for various markets about how to avoid gendered language in pronoun use and descriptors can be stored in termbases and translation memories, ready to implement across your brand communication and copy.
Enhanced translation quality (and consumer experience)
Prioritizing consistency will naturally produce a more coherent brand experience across products and cultures. That’s because terminology management helps you create a cohesive tone of voice, so your fans in both Europe and Asia can feel equally enthusiastic about your brand and understand what you stand for in any language.
A brand's tone of voice covers things like how formal you want to be or whether you want to come across as more serious and authoritative or fun and casual. For outdoor sports brands in particular, it also affects how much localized or sport-specific lingo you want to incorporate. All of these decisions go into the translation memory, which then serves as context for future translations. If your translation partner leverages terminology management tools, they can easily identify and implement your brand’s tone of voice, improving the quality of their work and your content.
And when your agency spends less time manually checking product names, technical specifications and legal jargon, they have more time to improve your content’s readability and flow. That means more native-sounding multilingual copy and faster turnarounds. Effective use of terminology management leads to genuine communication that resonates with your target audience.
Decreased workload for your team
Some outdoor sports brands may try translating in-house before using a translation agency so they don’t have to take the time to onboard a new partner. But it actually adds work for your team that could be taking them away from their other tasks. Plus, high content volumes and untrained linguists can result in translations that are messy, inconsistent or only half finished.
That was the case for a client of ours, a company that makes specialized safety tools for sports enthusiasts and athletes. The original content was translated by a non-native speaker in-house, which resulted in a somewhat awkward text with several mistakes that ultimately damaged their brand image.
Taking the time to work with a translation provider who will implement effective terminology management frees your team up to focus on the product itself and saves you the effort of having to train them on new software and processes. At The Action Sports Translator, we’ve been honing our terminology management skills since 2018, so we’re ready to tackle all of your terminological challenges.
Cost saving
The first step towards effective terminology management is analyzing existing content to identify critical terms, adding them to comprehensive glossaries and working closely with stakeholders to stay aligned with the brand’s voice and values. That may seem like a lot of upfront effort, but these best practices ultimately lead to smoother workflows and lower costs. The robust terminology frameworks employed by professional translation agencies (like us at The Action Sports Translator), plus our proven expertise, provide a tried-and-tested workflow, giving you authentic copy that resonates with your audience. All you’ll have to focus on is providing exceptional outdoor experiences
Turnaround times will also be shorter because the correct terms will be ready to go with a single keystroke. And once you’ve done it the first time, termbases, glossaries and translation memories ensure that translations are stored and re-used in the future, preventing copy that’s “good enough for now” from hurting you in the long run or leading to costly fixes and edits.
Outdoor and action sports brands produce lots of content between new product launches, marketing campaigns, websites and social media. With so much to keep track of, terminology management systems both speed up the process and prevent tons of headaches down the line. That means you get stellar copy that fits in your budget and is ready to launch when you are.
How we can help at The Action Sports Translator
Terminology management is just one of the tools we have in our belt at The Action Sports Translator. But a termbase is only as good as its input, and that’s why we also work with expert translators who understand your sports and customers (because they are your customers). Professional translations plus an expertly implemented TMS equals a brand voice that’s true to you and consistent across channels.
Ready to take the plunge? Let us help you assess your linguistic and terminology assets, consult to design a terminology management strategy and leverage AI to analyze and compile glossaries, termbases and translation memories. With terminology management support, your localization processes will get easier and faster with every launch, so you can be confident that customers around the world are enjoying the same experience as your local fans.If you’re looking for an outdoor sports translation agency that knows how to leverage terminology management to take your international presence to new heights, drop us a line at hello@theactionsportstranslator.com.
