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 learners 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 ” (表) 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 表 or手表, so this is a valid standalone translation.
• “surface” cannot be translated as 表 . It would be translated as 表面 , 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 来 or 过来 , so this is a valid standalone translation.
• “to take place” cannot be translated as 来 . It would be translated as 带来 , 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 来 . It would be translated as 未来 , 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 天 . It can also be translated as 天空 , but this doesn't matter here.
• “heaven“ cannot be translated as 天 . It would be translated as 天堂 , 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 一起 , where 一 has the meaning « all », or ?? , where 一 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 要 . It would be translated as 要紧 (yaoqing), so this is a no-translation meaning (write „<m>important </m> into the vocabulary repository XLS file)
• ”essential” ( 必要 ) is another meaning of 要 , 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 要 or 想要 , 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 贵 or 昂贵 , so this is a valid standalone translation.
• ”valued” cannot be translated as 贵 . It would be translated as 珍贵 , so this is a no-translation meaning (write ”<m>valued</m>” into the vocabulary repository XLS file if this meaning is really important)

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