A terminology guideline is a binding document containing rules for the correct use of terminology within an organization. A terminology guideline describes methods for selecting preferred terms among synonyms and gives directions on terminology spelling. Applying the rules to the terms of a specific subject field or an organization we create a controlled vocabulary. Controlled vocabularies enhance communication and knowledge transfer within the members of an organization, they support organizations by reinforcing the corporate identity and have a positive return on customer experience too. Controlled vocabularies are paramount in technical writing and translation management. First, they assure content consistency and improve text readability. Second, they optimize the overall translation process reducing translation costs and turn around times. Controlled vocabularies are also the pillars of business competitiveness and of the knowledge society. Whether it is an intranet, the World Wide Web or a library system: As build-in component for controlled tagging, controlled vocabularies increase retrieval performance optimizing the search results and enabling better decision making. The first step for the implementation of a controlled vocabulary is the creation of a guideline with clear rules on how to discriminate among synonyms and spelling variants. In my presentation at the European Trade Fair for Technical Communication (TEKOM-Jahrestagung, 12. November 2014, Stuttgart, Germany) I will show a set of rules and considerations that should be taken into account when creating controlled vocabularies. The rules base on recognized terminology principles, as per DIN, ISO and GB Norms (GB: GuoJia BiaoZhun, Chinese Standards). Through a comparative analysis of the German and Chinese language I will demonstrate that many of the principles for creation of terms or disambiguation among synonyms used in the German language can also be "re-used" for Chinese. This suggests that terminology consistency can be achieved among languages belonging to different language groups.