Here's an excerpt from our own guidelines to illustrate this:

As a Chinese native speaker, you may consider all meanings of a word to be important. But keep in mind that a German speaker (for example) is primarily interested in how he can use a word (= “standalone translation”) – not what it means as well (“no – translation meanings”).

General rule: If a meaning isn't really important, don't include it! Most users prefer to see less translations und meanings than too many. Focus on the important stuff!

• The important stuff are the valid standalone translations of a word.
• You are not required to list all meanings a Chinese word can have, but you are required to list all different standalone translations of that Chinese word.
• Include meanings only
• If they are really essential and important
• If a word has only meanings but no valid standalone translations

Finally, if you decide to include no-translation meanings, proceed as follows:

In every mother tongue, write all no-translation meanings between <m></m> tags.

Let's take the word “ bia3o ” ( ? ) as an example:

Translation 1: watch

Translation 2: <m>surface</m>

This enables Han Trainer to recognize if there are no-translation meanings among the translations of a word.

No-translation meanings will be displayed in a different color (grey) in the software, in the vocabulary list and on the learning cards.

When a word with standalone translations and no-translation meanings is displayed in Han Trainer,

• all no-translation meanings will be displayed in grey color
• The text: “'superior' is greyed out because it is only a meaning of zha3ng zhang. 'superior' cannot be translated directly as zhang.” will appear in comment line if it's not yet occupied
• As an answer, the no-translation meaning will be accepted like a normal translation

More examples:

• biao_surface
• „a watch” can be ? or ?? , so this is a valid standalone translation.
• “surface” cannot be translated as ? . It would be translated as ?? , so this is a no-translation meaning (it is rather important, so write „<m>surface</m> into the vocabulary repository XLS file)
• Preferably, the filename should be “biao_watch.swf”, but there is no need to change this for existing files

• lai_come
• “to come” can be ? or ?? , so this is a valid standalone translation.
• “to take place” cannot be translated as ? . It would be translated as ?? , so this is a no-translation meaning (write „<m>to take place</m> into the vocabulary repository XLS file if this meaning is really important)
• “the next” cannnot be translated as ? . It would be translated as ?? , so this is a no-translation meaning (write „<m>the next</m> into the vocabulary repository XLS file if this meaning is really important)

• tian_day
• “day” is a valid standalone translation
• “sky“ is a valid standalone translation for ? . It can also be translated as ?? , but this doesn't matter here.
• “heaven“ cannot be translated as ? . It would be translated as ?? , so this is a no-translation meaning (write „<m>heaven</m> into the vocabulary repository XLS file if this meaning is really important)

• yi_one
• “one” is a valid standalone translation
• There are also combinations such as ?? , where ? has the meaning « all », or ?? , where ? has the meaning „when“, but not all of them are important. In this case « all » is an important meaning (write „<m>all</m> into the vocabulary repository XLS file), but « when » is not an important meaning and can be ignored (don't include it into the XLS file). Generally, we only want meanings that are really important.

• yao_important
• ”important” cannot be translated as ? . It would be translated as ?? (yaoqing), so this is a no-translation meaning (write „<m>important </m> into the vocabulary repository XLS file)
• ”essential” ( ?? ) is another meaning of ? , but it's not an important meaning. Generally, we only want meanings that are really important . This one isn't, so it can be ignored (don't include it into the XLS file).
• ”to want” can be translated as ? or ?? , so this is a valid standalone translation. It should be put at the beginning (i.e. into the translation1 field).

• Preferably, the filename should be “yao_want.swf”, but there is no need to change this for existing files.

• gui_expensive
• ”expensive” can be translated as ? or ?? , so this is a valid standalone translation.
• ”valued” cannot be translated as ? . It would be translated as ?? , so this is a no-translation meaning (write ”<m>valued</m>” into the vocabulary repository XLS file if this meaning is really important)

• xian_before
• before ?? , ‘ before ' can be translated as ? or ?? , so this is a valid standalone translation.
• first ?? , ” first ” cannot be translated as ? . It would be translated as ?? , so this is a no-translation meaning (write ” <m>first</m> ” into the vocabulary repository XLS file)
• early ?? , ” early ” cannot be translated as ? . It would be translated as ?? , so this is a no-translation meaning (write ” <m>early</m> ” into the vocabulary repository XLS file if this meaning is really important)

• wei_tail
• tail ?? , ‘ tail ' can be translated as ? or ?? , so this is a valid standalone translation.
• last ?? , ” last ” cannot be translated as ? . It would be translated as ?? , so this is a no-translation meaning (write ” <m>last</m> ” into the vocabulary repository XLS file if this meaning is really important)

• shi_affair
• affair ?? , ‘ affair ' can be translated as ? or ?? , so this is a valid standalone translation.
• thing ?? , ” thing ” cannot be translated as ? . It would be translated as ?? , so this is a no-translation meaning (write ” <m>thing</m> ” into the vocabulary repository XLS file if this meaning is really important)
• job ??‘ job ' can be translated as ? or ??, so this is a valid standalone translation.

• yu_meet:  If one wants to express "I met her yesterday", one could not just say " ?? , ???? ", but “ ?? , ?????? ” , so this is a no-translation meaning (write ” <m>meet</m> ” into the vocabulary repository XLS file)

• bi_haveto: if one wants to say "I have to go home", one needs to say " ????? " instead of " ???? ", so this is a no-translation meaning (write ”<m>to have to</m>” into the vocabulary repository XLS file)

• gong_merit.swf ( ? ): This character is usually not used alone, but in conjunction with other characters. In a sentence such as ?? ( ? ) ? , the character ? means “merit”. So you have to write “<m>service</m>” in the VLxTransl1 field and “merit” in the VLxTransl2 field.

• gong_work.swf ( ? ): This character is usually not used alone, but in conjunction with other characters. In a sentence such as ???????? , the character ? means “man days”. So you have to write “<m>work</m>” in the VLxTransl1 field and “man day” in the VLxTransl2 field.

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