ASIN Loc General Style Guide for Full MTPE

General Style Guide for Full MTPE ASIN Loc

Amazon Confidential 1 Last updated: 25/11/2021

ASIN Loc

General Style Guide for

Full MTPE Guidelines



Contents

Purpose of the document ................................................................................................................................................... 3

Change log ............................................................................................................................................................................... 3

Self-service .............................................................................................................................................................................. 4

Project Description ................................................................................................................................................................ 4

Target audience ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Checklist for Post-editing process ..................................................................................................................................... 5

1. General Guidelines ...................................................................................................................................................... 7

1.1. Accuracy ................................................................................................................................................................. 7

1.1.1. Addition .......................................................................................................................................................... 7

1.1.2. Mistranslation .............................................................................................................................................. 7

1.1.3. Omission ........................................................................................................................................................ 7

1.1.4. Untranslated ................................................................................................................................................. 7

1.2. Design ...................................................................................................................................................................... 7

1.2.1. Truncation/Text expansion .................................................................................................................. 7

1.3. Fluency .................................................................................................................................................................... 7

1.3.1. Grammar ........................................................................................................................................................ 7

1.3.2. Spelling ........................................................................................................................................................... 8

1.3.3. Typography ................................................................................................................................................... 8

1.4. Other ....................................................................................................................................................................... 8

1.4.1. Compliance ................................................................................................................................................... 8

How to handle problematic source content ............................................................................................................... 14

2. File Completion .......................................................................................................................................................... 16

3. Questions and translation issues .......................................................................................................................... 17

4. Annexes ....................................................................................................................................................................... 18

4.1. Quick Guide on How to Fix Whitespace Issues on ATMS....................................................................... 18



Purpose of the document The following style guide outlines the main requirements for the type of projects you will receive. They will give you an overview of the type of content, purpose of the localization and conventions specific to this project.

Please use this style guide in combination with the appendix specific to your target language.

We trust our translators to localize the text to the best of their ability, using their professional knowledge and experience to provide a target text with human-like quality that is accurate and fluent, consistently uses correct and approved terminology, has an appropriate tone and style and is free of grammatical errors.

Change log Date Section (ctrl+click to get there) Change description

16/06/2020 Checklist for Post-editing process Update: Request not to merge/split segments under any circumstance

14/08/2020 Project Description Clarification of expectation: Target text quality should be as good as with human translation

13/10/2020 Checklist for Post-editing process Update: Linguists no longer required to check 101% ICE matches

13/11/2020 Checklist for Post-editing process Update: Deleting requirement about checking 101% ICE matches

09/02/2021 Compliance Adding instructions to check language appendix for title guidelines

07/05/2021 Compliance Instructions on how to handle customization/reference to other links updated

07/05/2021 Checklist for Post-editing process Notes updated

07/05/2021 How to handle problematic source content

Edited instructions on how to handle discrepancies

07/05/2021 Mistranslation Adding example of a parent/child ASIN

16/09/2021 Compliance Adding more points in the list of information to remove

25/11/2021 How to handle problematic source content

Removed reference about adding hyphens in empty segments

25/11/2021 Truncation/Text expansion Adding rule about title length

25/11/2021 Compliance Added reference to color and size in customization options

25/11/2021 Compliance Adding information on what to remove in ASINs and in titles



Self-service Before you continue reading this style guide, it’s important that you double-check that the skill required for the ATMS job you’re picking is “Full MTPE”.

How to see the skill required for a job? On each offer you find a field called Skill. This field shows the skill required for the job. Some examples of skills currently active are Light MTPE and Full MTPE, and more will be added in the future. The Skill field also helps you to determine which style guide to use for the job you’re picking. The choice of the style guide does not depend on the skill only, but it’s one of the parameters to take into account.

Figure 1 Example of offer with Skill “Light MTPE”

Project Description The translator will receive machine-translated descriptive texts of products. The source text column of the project shows the content of the detail pages for individual products, called ASINs (Amazon Standard Item Number), in the source language. The task of the translator is to post-edit into their target language the machine-translated output visible in the target text column, so that it shows in the detail pages for those products in the target marketplace website.

Remember! You are post-editing, not translating! So do not ignore or erase the Machine Translation (MT) output if it is usable, and post-edit it to provide a target text with human-like quality that is accurate and fluent, consistently uses correct and approved terminology, has an appropriate tone and style and is free of grammatical errors.

There are two types of post-editing projects: files with only titles of products and files with titles and bullet points (list of specifications about the product) and/or descriptions. The title can usually be found in the first segment of an ASIN (but might also be split into multiple segments), followed by bullets and description segments. In order to distinguish between these segments, you can click on a segment in our ATMS Web Editor and refer to the information displayed in a window at the bottom of the page:



(“item_name” signifies that a segment belongs to the title; “bullet point” and “description” segments will be labeled as “bullet point” and “description”.)

Target audience Amazon’s mission is to be the Earth’s most customer-centric company, and this philosophy applies to our translations. As such, we ask you to always put yourself in the position of an Amazon customer while post-editing: the fundamental aim is to provide clear and accurate product information and to adapt the information to the market you are localizing into.

Checklist for Post-editing process

✓ You will receive an assignment email, notifying you that one or more jobs have been assigned to you on ATMS.

✓ Start post-editing, making sure to adhere to the style guides set out in this document and your language-specific appendix. Please make sure to also:

o check TM matches thoroughly (including 100% matches, Context matches, Fuzzy matches etc.), and

o check the terms provided by our term base

✓ While post-editing, it can be useful to see the context, the images and the layout of the text. In order to access this kind of information you just have to enter the appropriate ASIN number on the source market’s Amazon website as a search. If you can’t find a product by inserting the ASIN number in the search bar of the Amazon source language website, please use the following URL format (inserting the ASIN code of the product in question): e.g. http://www.amazon.de/dp/B009FUF6DM . Here is the model for some marketplaces:

Germany: http://www.amazon.de/dp/[ASIN] or http://www.amazon.de/dp/product/[ASIN]

France: http://www.amazon.fr/dp/[ASIN] or http://www.amazon.fr/dp/product/[ASIN]

Spain: http://www.amazon.es/dp/[ASIN] or http://www.amazon.es/dp/product/[ASIN]

http://www.amazon.de/dp/B009FUF6DM



Italy: http://www.amazon.it/dp/[ASIN] or http://www.amazon.it/dp/product/[ASIN]

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/[ASIN] or http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/product/[ASIN]

USA: http://amazon.com/dp/[ASIN] or http://amazon.com/dp/product/[ASIN]

JP: http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/[ASIN] or http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/product/[ASIN]

✓ It may also be useful to google the product to find additional product information listed elsewhere on the Internet. However, this is solely for your information.

✓ Note: o You might not get all context you need for a particular ASIN from the webpage which

may display a related product instead. Please follow the source text and translate everything, even though this information might not appear on the detail page.

o Do not merge (ctrl+J) or split (ctrl+E) any segment, as it is likely to cause technical issues.



1. General Guidelines 1.1. Accuracy

1.1.1. Addition

• Do not include text in the target that is not present in the source

1.1.2. Mistranslation

• The target must accurately represent source content

• The terms provided by the machine or the term base may not always be the correct ones for the given context; therefore, please make sure to double-check the output and make amendments where necessary

• Sometimes segments of related (child) ASINs may all be displayed together and look mostly identical with only minor variations. Please be especially careful and ensure these are all translated accurately.

Example:

1.1.3. Omission

• Do not omit information that is present in the source

1.1.4. Untranslated

• Do not leave any foreign words in the target, unless they are also common in the target language

1.2. Design 1.2.1. Truncation/Text expansion

• Titles (item_names) should not exceed 200 characters (including spaces) as going over this limit can cut off important information from the Display Page.

1.3. Fluency 1.3.1. Grammar

• Ensure the target is grammatically and syntactically correct



• Please correct grammar mistakes, such as declension/conjugation errors or unnatural sentence structure

1.3.2. Spelling

• Correct spelling mistakes in the target text, and make sure to run a spell check (shortcut F7) before completing your file

• Follow the rules for capital letters that apply in the target language. [Tip: use the shortcut Shift+F3 to toggle between capitals, title case, and lower case.] Examples: o Abbreviations / acronyms / units of measurement: must respect the target language rules for

spelling. Example acronym: “US” for United States, and not “us”. Example measurement units: W, V, A, mAh; kg, mm, g.

o Model numbers and codes should mirror the capitalization and spelling in the source text (e.g. “HdeNn03tjl” >> must look exactly the same in the source and the target; if not it must be corrected).

1.3.3. Typography

• Follow the rules for punctuation that apply in the target language

• Follow the rules for spaces that apply in the target language, including the space possibly required between number and measurement unit (e.g. 24 cm). Also, ensure that there are no double spaces, no leading spaces and no trailing spaces in the target (see relevant annex: Quick Guide on How to Fix Whitespace Issues on ATMS )

1.4. Other 1.4.1. Compliance

➢ Placeholders/Tags: Please make sure that all tags displayed as blue icons in the source also appear in the corresponding target segments. Any tags that are not displayed as blue icons but as plain text (such as “</b>” or “<br />”) must be deleted from the target segments as they would appear as text on the website. Furthermore, please ensure that all tags are in the correct order (i.e. 1 followed by 2, etc.).

➢ Title guidelines:

• Every title should start with the brand + series + model number (unless specified differently in your language appendix). The following section, [Product Information], should start with a capital letter (this does not apply to languages that do not use capital letters, e.g. Hindi), and its elements should be separated by commas. The order of the remaining product details is up to you – however please try to make your translation as clear as possible for our customers.



(Please refer to your appendix to consult whether your specific target language has Title guidelines different or complementary to these ones).

Example:

Garmin Nuvi 1490 KJ45H Traffic Satellite Navigation System with European Maps, 7”, Green [Brand] + [Sub-Brand/Series] + [Model number] + [Product information]

It is very important that you do not add information such as colour, size or patterns to the title if it is not in the source. The only information you should add to the title is the product, if the source text does not specify what it actually is.

Example: Addition of “trainers” in the target in the following localization of a title: “adidas ZX 700” --> “adidas ZX 700 Trainers”

• Never end the target title with a full stop (nor any other punctuation mark). Please note: Rarely, in some project files, titles may be split across multiple segments. In those cases, please make sure that these segments are not separated with a full stop.

• Use numerals (2 instead of two)

• Please ensure that well-known brands (e.g. adidas) and model names (e.g. iPhone) are spelled and capitalized correctly, and do not translate them.

➢ Colour guidelines

• If source colours are: ▪ in a different language than your source language, ▪ a fancy invention of the seller or ▪ specific to a certain well-known brand

… keep the original version in brackets and provide an approximate, basic colour in the target language.

Examples:

Source EN Target FR

adidas Men’s Winter Jacket, M, Sunny Yellow adidas Veste d’hiver pour homme M Jaune (Sunny Yellow)

Source EN Target DE



Nike Air Max 90 Essential Men’s Trainers, Dark Electric Blue/Light Stone/Anthracite 407

Nike Air Max 90 Essential Herren Sneaker, Blau/Hellgrau/Anthrazit (Dark Electric Blue/Light Stone/Anthracite 407)

• If source colours are not just a basic colour, but longer and descriptive, provide a one-to-one translation in the target.

Example:

Source EN: Yona Photo Frame, 10 x 15 cm, Cornflower Blue

Target IT: Yona Cornice portafoto, 10 x 15 cm, blu fiordaliso

➢ As you are localizing products in order to make them available in a different country to the one they were originally listed in, you might be required to make certain changes to the product text:

• Cross-border barrier: In the event of a cross-border barrier — due to language (e.g. board games, keyboards, talking toys, diaries, apps, voice-controlled devices, etc.) or other reasons (e.g. automotive parts that might not apply to all countries, services) — please add a warning at least once; either in the title or in the segment where it fits best. You can find the suggested wording for your target language in the language-specific appendix.

o Please also add the language warning to products that include an instruction manual o Only for source language Japanese (JP), follow this instruction when post-editing titles

of works of media (e.g. books, magazines and DVDs), provide the official translation into the target language of the title of the work (or your own translation if there is no official one) and add the following warning: “([target language] version not guaranteed)”

E.g. (JP → US): シュガー・ラッシュ → Wreck-it Ralph (English version not guaranteed)

E.g. (JP → US): スタンフォードの心理学講義人生がうまくいくシンプルなル

ール → Psychology Lectures from Stanford, Simple Rules to Succeed in Your Life (English version not guaranteed)

• If you come across any of the information listed below, please remove it in the target:

1. Contact options (emails/websites/customer service contact) or requests to contact the seller, regardless of whether the seller is Amazon or not

2. Links to external websites

3. Customization (or personalization) options: Leave the word “customizable” in your target language only in the title segment and delete all other references to customization options. The suggested wording for your target language can be found in the appendix. However, this does not apply to variants of a product (color, size, etc.) which should be translated.



o Exception: for Mozart arcs ONLY where customers are shopping in the same market place, you can provide a translation of these customization (or personalization) options.

o How to tell if a project is Mozart: These arcs may be indicated by the Project label ("Mozart")

[The main reason we ask you to remove information in points 1. to 3. is because we cannot guarantee that these options will be available in the target language.]

4. Price (including also offers/sales/discounts/charity donations/invoices) 5. Delivery conditions (place/timing) 6. Import/export information (e.g. “German Import”, “English Import”) 7. Warranties/guarantees, returns and refunds (exception: “Amazon Protect” warranties) 8. References to specific links / ASIN codes (even if they are offered by the same seller), whether

on an external website or on Amazon.

Example:

Information to keep Information to delete

Check out other products in our store Go to www.storename.com to view other products

[The reason we ask you to remove the information in points 4. to 8. is because we cannot guarantee that it will be available/conditions will be the same in the target country.]

9. The term “new” or “latest” if it refers to time or the condition of the product. [Because products might remain on the website for a longer period of time.]

10. Product availability (e.g. “in stock”). [Because this kind of information will be provided and updated automatically on the website.]

11. Car fitment information, such as brand, model, year etc. (delete only from the product title!). See the appendix to check if there is an exception in your target language. [Because Amazon offers a tool for all its marketplaces that can be used to check whether a part fits a certain CAR model.]

12. Comparisons to other sellers/products, especially in regards to quality. [For legal reasons: unfair competition]

13. Mentioning other brands (example: “Ray-Ban like glasses”), as this can lead to copyright infringement

14. Information repeated within the same section. E.g. you can remove one of the three in a title that would include the text: “laptop keyboard, keyboard for laptop, keyboard for PC”.



Please note: If the information is repeated across different sections, it has to be localized in the target at least once for each section (Title, Bullet-points and Description)

15. If you come across discriminatory or unethical content, you are free to omit it. However, please be as objective as possible in making this judgment, and make sure to include a comment in your email citing the number(s) of the affected segment(s).

In addition, you may choose not to localize the following:

16. Nonsensical or confusing source text

17. Entire source segments in a language you do not translate from

18. References to "Patent Pending". References to time-specific information, such as “Patent pending”, should not be kept in the target, since products might remain on the Amazon website for a longer period of time

• Exclusively in titles (item_name), please remove:

• Misleading terms like “luxury” or “high quality”

• Words that might indicate a comparison (even without the mention of other products/brands), for example: “ideal gift”

• The word “parent” or “variation” as it is an internal term that should not appear on the website

• In general, do not remove: 1. Free gifts: We are not asking you to remove references about free gifts. The reason for

this is that sometimes what is called a "free gift" is actually part of the set of product the customer is buying, as in the example of a cover that comes with a free stylus, screen protector and dust-plug. If we deleted the whole reference to "free gifts" we would end up omitting a lot of useful information for the customer.

2. Packaging information: We are not asking that packaging information be removed. The reason for this is that we might end up excluding information that is relevant for the customer, e.g. Amazon Certified Frustration-Free Packaging info or, in the particular case of jewelry, references to the bags that contain the product (i.e. organza bags, display boxes, etc.).

3. In line with this, translators also should not remove references to packaging weight and measurements

4. Country of origin: information about the country of origin of the item/materials shouldn’t be removed.

- Note: Country of Origin (COO) refers to where the product was manufactured vs Place of Import, which refers to the location where the product is being shipped from.



5. Amazon warranty: Information concerning warranties offered by Amazon Protect needs to be post-edited

➢ Customer focus and technical requirements:

o Please add the measurement unit or measurement value in the target if it is missing (even if it is already missing in the source). You can usually find this information either on the product detail page, or on the manufacturer’s website.

o Expand material abbreviations (e.g. PES >> polyester; CO >> cotton), unless the expanded version sounds unnatural in your target language (e.g. PVC >> polyvinyl chloride).

o Please follow your target language rules for decimal mark / thousands separator conversion (e.g. “16.4 cm” for the UK, “16,4 cm” for DE/IT/ES etc.).

o You should keep all measurement units in their abbreviated form (e.g. “cm” and not “centimeters”).

o If an item displays text in the source language, that text should be left as it is in the source. There is no need to provide a courtesy translation in brackets.

Example (DE → EN):

T-shirt „Der beste Papa”, Blau” → T-shirt with text “Der beste Papa”, blue

o If you come across the term “Generic”, “Génerique” etc. as a brand name, it can be omitted.

o If you find a bullet point mark (e.g. -, *), please omit it in the target, as bullet point marks are automatically added in the translation once it is published.

o If you find special characters such as ♥, ☼ etc.), please omit them in the target. However, please do not remove copyright or trademark symbols, such as ®, © or ™.

o Do not use block capitals (unless they are part of a brand name that is always written in block capitals, e.g. PUMA) or exclamation marks (unless they are part of the brand name).

o Add a full stop at the end of every bullet point and description segment, unless you can tell that the text of a segment continues in the next one.

Please note: If a segment contains “Information to remove” + information that is relevant

to the customer, please post-edit the relevant information and only omit the information

that we ask to remove.



How to handle problematic source content Proceed in each case as indicated in the table below, depending on whether the issue occurs in a title (item_name in ATMS), bullet point (bullet_point in ATMS) or description (description in ATMS) segment:

Titles Bullet points + descriptions

Further details

Language you don't know Leave the segment empty

Leave the segment empty*

If the title is in a language you don’t know but the bullets are in

a language you do know, then please empty the segment but

post-edit the bullets/descriptions.

If the title is in a language you do know, but the bullets +

descriptions are in a language you don’t know, then please

post-edit the title but clear the bullets and descriptions.

If only parts of a segment are in a language you don’t know, please post-edit the parts that are in the

correct language.

Discriminatory/unethical content

Post-edit relevant information / if none, please leave the segment empty*

Discrepancy (correct title, wrong B and/or D)

Post-edit Post-edit

Stick to the source.



Discrepancy (wrong title, correct B and/or D)

Post-edit Post-edit Stick to the source.

Product discrepancy: different sections title/B/D refer to different products

Provide a post-edited translation of the source

Provide a post-edited translation of the source

If you come across an ASIN whose title corresponds to a product and whose bullet points and/or descriptions correspond to a totally different product, post-edit the source text irrespective of what the website shows.

Source segment contains Warranty / Delivery / Other info to be omitted

Post-edit relevant information

Post-edit relevant information / if none, please leave the segment empty*

ASINs that cannot be found on the Amazon website

Post-edit Post-edit

Nonsensical/incomplete source text

Post-edit only the clear pieces of information.

If you cannot make sense of the content altogether, please leave the target segment empty

Post-edit only the clear pieces of information.

If you cannot make sense of the content altogether, please leave the segment empty *



Sequence of words that resemble keywords**

Leave in the target only a translation of the words that relate to the product, separating them with commas and avoiding repeating the same word within the section of segments of the same type (item_name, bullet_point or description). If by doing this some segments need to stay empty, then just leave them empty and confirm them*.

Empty source segment(s) Leave the target empty

Leave the target empty

*If you leave a segment empty, make sure to also copy XML/HTML tags (displayed as blue icons on ATMS) to the target if present.

** Exceptionally, in some projects you might encounter a fourth type of segment: generic_keywords in ATMS. They typically consist of a sequence of words more or less related to the product and not linked grammatically. For example: Bikini Femme Grande Taille Maillot de Bain Bikini Ensemble Femme 2 Pièces Taille Haute Maillot de Bain Bandage Maillot de bain Dentelle Sexy Monokini Maillot de Bain Push-up Trikini Femme

How to handle generic_keywords segments: Leave in the target only a translation of the words that relate to the product (including synonyms), separating them in the same way as they are separated in the source (so, typically a space) and avoiding repeating the same word within the generic_keywords section of segments. If by doing this some segments need to stay empty, then just leave them empty and confirm them.

2. File Completion Once you have finished translating, please:

1. Run a QA check (shortcut F9 or by pressing the “Run QA” button in the QA pane) and check all errors in the QA pane. When you do, please:

o Fix all errors.

o Ignore all false positives by clicking on the box under “i”.

2. Ensure that you have abided to all language-specific instructions in your appendix.

3. Review your translation against the source text.

4. Check your translation to ensure that it reads like an original document in the target language.

5. Remove any double spaces using find and replace (see relevant annex: Quick Guide on How to Fix Whitespace Issues on ATMS )



3. Questions and translation issues Reach out to your Point of Contact or Outsourcing Partner Manager for this project if:

• You have any content-related questions that you cannot solve after adequate research.

• You lack the proper context to make an informed decision after adequate research.

• You have found issues in the source that might affect the final quality of the translation and we have not provided you with instructions on how to deal with problematic source of that type.

• You are uncertain of how to correctly localize content not covered in the style guide, your language appendix or any additional references.

Make sure to cite the number of the affected segment(s) as well as the project name, providing examples and explaining clearly the reasons for the issue and your preferred solution (if any). We will get back to you in the shortest possible delay and provide you with a relevant answer.



4. Annexes 4.1. Quick Guide on How to Fix Whitespace Issues on ATMS

It is important that you work with hidden characters visible (Figure 1) to avoid whitespace issues (e.g. double spaces, leading spaces and trailing spaces) that affect overall formatting quality and can trigger character limitation and upload issues in our pipeline.

Figure 1 - How to activate “Display Hidden Characters”

To remove double spaces, use the Filter Target Text (Figure 2) and Replace Text option (Figure 3) on ATMS.

Figure 2 - How to search for double spaces



Figure 3 - How to use search and replace on ATMS

The ATMS QA checker will also warn you of any leading and trailing spaces errors (Figure 4), so please fix any instances highlighted by it.

Figure 4 - Formatting issues highlighted by ATMS QA checker (leading and trailing spaces)

Documents

ASIN Loc General Style Guide for Full MTPE