Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- syntax_v2 [2025/05/31 05:59] – created mdbg
+++ syntax_v2 [2026/05/16 09:39] (current) – Handling numbers with multiple digits kbaiko
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ====== CC-CEDICT V2 Syntax ======
-//**TODO:** work in progress!//
+CC-CEDICT began adopting the v2 format in December 2023. For v1 syntax, see: [[syntax]].
-Version 2 (v2) introduces a new syntax for the pinyin of an entry, allowing for the specification of pinyin that follows standard pinyin orthography. In particular, it enables the combination of syllables to form words. For example, in v2, 二次方程 (quadratic equation) can now be written as two words, "er4ci4 fang1cheng2" (i.e., èrcì fāngchéng), rather than as four separate syllables, "er4 ci4 fang1 cheng2", as was required in v1.
+// Below are guidelines on what CC-CEDICT entries **should** look like. CC-CEDICT still has many old entries that do not comply with these rules yet. //
-Below are guidelines on what CC-CEDICT entries **should** look like. CC-CEDICT still has many old entries that do not comply with these rules yet.
+An entry is considered to be in v2 format if it uses double square brackets for the pinyin. v1 entries use a single square bracket.
-In particular:
+The primary difference between v1 and v2 is that v2 entries follow standard pinyin orthography. In v1, all pinyin were written with spaces between each syllable. In v2, syllables can be combined to form words. For example,
-  - Prior to April 2022, glosses and senses were separated using a /. As of April 2022, senses are to be separated with a / while glosses are to be separated with a ;. (This was a change in v1 format of definitions, but its progressive introduction largely coincides with the conversion of pinyin to v2 format.)
-  - In December 2023, CC-CEDICT began adopting the v2 pinyin format.
-An entry is considered to be in v2 format if it uses double square brackets for the pinyin.
 <code>
-[[pin1yin1]] rather than [pin1 yin1]
+v1: 二次方程 二次方程 [er4 ci4 fang1 cheng2] /(math.) quadratic equation/
+v2: 二次方程 二次方程 [[er4ci4 fang1cheng2]] /(math.) quadratic equation/
 </code>
-However, when updating the pinyin of an entry, the rest of the entry should also be reviewed. If this is done, it means that v2 pinyin format signifies not only that the pinyin format has been updated, but also that the definition has been checked for correctness and proper format: it's a way of keeping track of which entries have old definitions that need to be reviewed.
+However, besides just correcting the pinyin of an entry, the rest of the entry must also be reviewed. If this is done, it means that v2 pinyin format signifies not only that the pinyin format has been updated, but also that the definition has been checked for correctness and proper format: it's a way of keeping track of which entries have old definitions that need to be reviewed.
-As of May 2025, roughly 15% of entries had been converted to v2 by editors.
+In particular, prior to April 2022, glosses and senses were separated using a /. As of April 2022, senses are to be separated with a / while glosses are to be separated with a ;. (This was a change in v1 format of definitions, but its progressive introduction largely coincides with the conversion of pinyin to v2 format.)
+A number of other (mostly minor) syntax and format changes have also been established over the years, and are outlined on this wiki. v1 entries (some of which date back to 1998), may not necessarily follow our latest conventions. However, v2 entries should. Part of the v2 conversion process is making sure these rules are followed.
 Three editions of CC-CEDICT are published regularly:
@@ Line 35: / Line 35: @@
 <code>
 Traditional Simplified [[pin1yin1]] /gloss; gloss; .../gloss; gloss; .../
-</code>
-For example:
-<code>
-皮實 皮实 [[pi2shi5]] /(of things) durable/(of people) sturdy; tough/
 </code>
@@ Line 50: / Line 45: @@
 If an editor wants to add additional senses for an existing trad-simp-pinyin combination, they should edit its definition rather than create a new entry.
 ==== Traditional and simplified characters ====
 The Chinese word should consist of one or more Chinese characters, without any spaces in it. Both traditional and simplified forms should be provided, and the two must have the same length.
-There are a very small number of entries that use symbols, numbers, or other non-Chinese characters in the word, for example
+==== Pinyin ====
+The pinyin should be in accordance with standard pinyin orthography. For a comprehensive reference, we recommend //Chinese Romanization: Pronunciation and Orthography// by Yin Binyong.
+For the majority of entries, an entry can be converted from v1 to v2 by simply removing the spaces within words (see 二次方程 above). In addition, a hyphen can now be included in the pinyin when appropriate.
 <code>
-% % [pa1] /percent (Tw)/
+師生 师生 [[shi1-sheng1]] /teachers and students/
-C 3C [san1 C] /computers, communications, and consumer electronics/China Compulsory Certificate (CCC)/
+柴米油鹽醬醋茶 柴米油盐酱醋茶 [[chai2-mi3-you2-yan2-jiang4-cu4-cha2]] /lit. firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea/fig. life's daily necessities/
-421 [si4 er4 yi1] /four grandparents, two parents and an only child/
-K人 K人 [K ren2] /(slang) to hit sb; to beat sb/
 </code>
-**Below are some notes on how these entries are handled in v2.**
+Rules about our pinyin format:
+  - Tones are indicated with numerals instead of diacritics. The neutral tone (轻声) uses the numeral "5", which should not be omitted.
+  - Because we use numerals, the boundary between characters is clearly established and apostrophes before vowels are not needed
+  - ü (the umlaut), is written as “u:”. For example, 女 -> nu:3
+  - 儿 as the “retroflex final” is written as r5
+  - Raw tones should be used:
+      - Tone sandhi is **not** indicated (e.g., 你好[ni3hao3] is not written as [ni2hao3])
+      - 一 and 不 have various modifications in tone depending on what follows them, but these are **not** indicated in the pinyin (e.g., 一半[yi1ban4] is not written as [yi2ban4], 不是[bu4shi4] is not written as [bu2shi4])
+      - Word-related changes to neutral tone, however, **are** indicated. These are especially common with reduplicated forms (e.g., use ma1 ma5, not ma1 ma1; ba4 ba5, not ba4 ba4; kan4 kan5, not kan4 kan4; xiang3 xiang5 ("take under consideration"), not xiang3 xiang3). This isn't limited to reduplicated forms, e.g., ming2 bai5, not ming2 bai2; cong1 ming5, not cong1 ming2.\\ It's best to keep in mind that Pinyin is about Mandarin words, not Chinese characters.
+  - xx5: Represents an entry where pinyin does not apply. There are very few entries with this pinyin and we do not expect to add more.
-Let's take "e人" (extroverted person) as an example.
+<code>
+々 々 [xx5] /iteration mark indicating repetition of the preceding character in horizontal writing (rare in modern Chinese)/
+〻 〻 [xx5] /iteration mark indicating repetition of the preceding character in vertical writing (rare in modern Chinese)/
+</code>
-There are several ways one might like to render "e人" in pinyin, such as
+==== Definition ====
-  - e-rén
-  - erén
-  - yìrén
-The Editor website attempts to match the parts of the headword with the parts of the pinyin, and will, if necessary, treat some parts as "unparsed".
+A definition is made up of senses, and a sense is made up of glosses. Senses should be separated using a slash "/", while glosses should be separated with a semicolon ";". This means that you can not use / or ; within a definition - for example, "w/o" as an abbreviation of "without" would incorrectly split the definition into two senses.
-For example, in the following entry, "e" is an unparsed element in both the headword and the pinyin, while 人 is matched with "ren2".
+Generally, glosses within a sense are synonyms and can be included to remove ambiguity, while senses represent wholly different meanings or uses of a word. Here's an example of an entry with multiple senses and glosses.
-<code> e人 e人 [[e-ren2]] /(slang) extroverted person/ </code>
-If the Editor website https://cc-cedict.org/editor/ cannot unambiguously match up the elements of the headword and the pinyin, the entry will not be processed. That is what happens in the following case, where the proposed pinyin is "eren2" rather than "e-ren2".
+<code>
+算 算 [[suan4]] /to calculate; to figure out/to include; to count in/to count; to be valid; to carry weight/to regard as; to consider (to be ...)/
+</code>
+Rules to follow when writing a definition:
+  - Use American English.
+  - Do not add definite or indefinite articles (e.g. "a", "an", "the" etc) to English nouns unless they are necessary to distinguish the word from another usage type or homonym
+  - Don't use parts of speech. Instead try to give an indication of grammatical usage within the English definition. CC-CEDICT is a human readable descriptive dictionary, not a resource intended for machine processing.
+  - The singular form is preferred over the plural form, unless the word is typically used in its plural form.
+  - Entries for people should include dates if possible (birth, death, years in which the person was active in a certain role etc) and why this person is of interest (was famous writer, took part in a revolution, was murdered etc). If a person isn't particularly famous and isn't related to China or Chinese culture, please don't include them.
+  - Names of plants, animals, musical instruments should give common name and scientific name when appropriate; there is a particular problem of how specific the word is -- a plant may mean a minor variety within a species, or may refer to an entire taxonomic family. Different writers will use it to mean the common family, or the particular item of salad on their plate at present.
-<code> e人 e人 [[eren2]] /(slang) extroverted person/ (Invalid format!)</code>
-To specify "erén" (as opposed to, say, "e-rén"), it is necessary to use braces to guide the Editor website in parsing. The following would work:
+=== Ambiguity due to homonyms ===
-<code>e人 e人 [[{e}ren2]] /(slang) extroverted person/</code>
-... as would several other forms, including
+Many words in the English language have multiple meanings. If such a word is used to write a definition, additional information should be provided to prevent ambiguity.
-<code>{e}人 {e}人 [[{e}ren2]] /(slang) extroverted person/</code>
-Here is a link to a webpage where a proposed entry can be tested to see if it can be parsed correctly.
-"Parse entry" webpage:
-https://cc-cedict.org/editor/editor.php?handler=ParseEntry
-To specify "yìrén" as the pinyin for e人, no braces are necessary. The following entry can be parsed, as one can verify at the "Parse entry" webpage. "e" will be matched with "yi4", and 人 will be matched with "ren2".
-<code>e人 e人 [[yi4ren2]] /(slang) extroverted person/</code>
-Generally, it is regarded as preferable not to indicate the pronunciation of non-Chinese parts of a headword (such as "e" in "e人"). Instead, they can appear as unparsed elements of the pinyin. For example, "e-ren2" is preferred over "yi4ren2".
-==== Pinyin ====
-The pinyin should be in accordance with standard pinyin orthography, except that numerals are used to indicate tones instead of diacritics, and apostrophes are not indicated.
-Proper nouns should be capitalized, and spaces or hyphens should be inserted when appropriate. For example,
 <code>
-蘋果手機 苹果手机 [[Ping2guo3 shou3ji1]] /iPhone/
+首都 首都 [[shou3du1]] /capital (city)/
-師生 师生 [[shi1-sheng1]] /teachers and students/
 </code>
-Other rules about our pinyin format:
+The text between the parentheses is "meta-information"; it is not a direct part of the translation, merely to prevent ambiguity.
-  - The neutral tone uses the numeral "5", which should not be omitted.
-  - ü, also known as the umlaut, is written as “u:”. For example, 女 -> nu:3
-  - 儿 as the “retroflex final” is written as r5
-  - Raw tones should be used:
-      - Tone sandhi is **not** indicated (e.g., ni3 hao3 is not changed to ni2 hao3)
-      - Although "yi" and "bu" have various modifications in tone, depending on what follows them, these are **not** indicated in writing (e.g., "one horse" is pronounced "yi4 pi3 ma3" but written "yi1 pi3 ma3", and "not enough" is pronounced "bu2 gou4" but written "bu4 gou4")
-      - Word-related changes to neutral tone, however, **are** indicated. These are especially common with reduplicated forms (e.g., use ma1 ma5, not ma1 ma1; ba4 ba5, not ba4 ba4; kan4 kan5, not kan4 kan4; xiang3 xiang5 ("take under consideration"), not xiang3 xiang3). This isn't limited to reduplicated forms, e.g., ming2 bai5, not ming2 bai2; cong1 ming5, not cong1 ming2.\\ It's best to keep in mind that Pinyin is about Mandarin words, not Chinese characters.
-  - Non-Chinese characters: Letters should be written as they are, while numbers should be written out using pinyin, for example, 3C becomes “san1 C”.
-  - xx5: There are a few entries where the pinyin is xx5, which represents unknown pinyin or characters where pinyin does not apply. Some Korean and Japanese symbols go here. It’s unlikely we will add more of these entries.
-<code>
-々 々 [xx5] /iteration mark (used to represent a duplicated character)/
-㍽ ㍽ [xx5] /大正[Da4 zheng4] written as a single character/
-朩 朩 [xx5] /one of the characters used in kwukyel (phonetic "pin"), an ancient Korean writing system/
-込 込 [xx5] /(Japanese kokuji) to be crowded; to go into/
-</code>
-==== Definition ====
+=== General principles of translation ===
-Definitions should be written in American English.
+The English should be meaningful, not horribly ugly, and bear a close relation to the Chinese meaning. It should correspond to something that could be used naturally by an English speaker (I think Arthur Waley has some advice saying that just because a text is about magnetohydrodynamics, it doesn't follow that it has to be horribly ugly).
-Senses should be separated using a slash "/", while glosses within a sense should be separated with a semicolon ";". This means that you can not using / or ; within a definition - for example, "w/o" as an abbreviation of "without" would incorrectly split the definition into two senses.
+On the other hand, a translation always loses something, and the translator can compensate by substituting an English equivalent (e.g. a biblical or Shakespearian allusion in place of a Confucian idiom).
-Do not add definite or indefinite articles (e.g. "a", "an", "the", etc) to English nouns unless they are necessary to distinguish the word from another usage type or homonym
+Most words have more than one meaning, and more than one grammatical function. Care is needed not to concentrate only on a specific occurrence to the exclusion of others. e.g . the actual occurrence may be a verb in the past participle (say "overthrown") whereas the word may also mean "destruction", "to topple" etc.
-Don't use parts of speech. Instead try to give an indication of grammatical usage within the English definition. CC-CEDICT is a human readable descriptive dictionary, not a resource intended for machine processing.
-Abbreviations etc cf e.g. i.e. do not need any further punctuation.
-Extended meanings indicated by lit. .. fig. combination when appropriate or when a common expression refers back to a classical incident or chengyu, one can refer to it with cf (incident in Records of the Historian).
+There are tens of thousands, if not a hundred thousand, Chinese characters that have ever been created in Chinese history. Many of them are archaic, obscure, and have not been used in centuries, perhaps millennia, and it may not be possible to provide a definition. If you can't find a character in common dictionaries, or examples of the character in modern use, it's a sign that it's not worth including.
@@ Line 153: / Line 127: @@
 Taiwanese GuoYu sometimes prefers not to use the neutral tone, so we do not list Taiwan pronunciations when they consist only of saying "don't use the neutral tone". When a character has a "Taiwan pr." notice, then all of its compound need not mention it.
+==== Labels ====
-==== Ambiguity due to homonyms ====
+See [[labels]]
-Sometimes words used in the English definitions can have multiple meanings. If the Chinese word does not have these additional meanings, additional information should be provided to prevent ambiguity:\\
-首都 首都 [shou3 du1] /capital (city)/
-The text between the parentheses is "meta-information"; it is not a direct part of the translation, merely to prevent ambiguity.
 ==== References ====
-The English definitions can contain references to other Chinese words. These should be noted as follows:\\
+See [[references]]
-漢字|汉字[Han4 zi4]
-For example:\\
-股指 股指 [gu3 zhi3] /stock market index/share price index/abbr. for 股票指數|股票指数[gu3 piao4 zhi3 shu4]/
 ==== Classifiers ====
-Classifiers (also called "Measure words") can be listed using the following syntax:\\
+Classifiers, or "measure words", can be listed using the following syntax:
-避風港 避风港 [bi4 feng1 gang3] /haven/refuge/harbor/CL:座[zuo4],個|个[ge4]/
-Classifiers follow the 'reference' syntax, are prefixed by 'CL:' and separated by a comma (no additional spacing).
+<code>
+麵包 面包 [[mian4bao1]] /bread/CL:片[pian4],塊|块[kuai4]/
-The classifier words itself can be described using:\\
+麵包店 面包店 [[mian4bao1dian4]] /bakery/CL:家[jia1]/
-/classifier for small round things (peas, bullets, peanuts, pills, grains etc)/
+</code>
-==== Bound forms ====
-A bound form is a morpheme that only appears as part of a larger expression. In English, bound forms tend to be prefixes or suffixes such as “-ly”, “-est”, “pre-”, “post-” etc and generally are not words by themselves. In Chinese however, characters can either be bound or free, and it can be difficult to determine which. Some characters can have multiple bound and multiple free senses.
-There are two types of bound forms in Chinese, those with meanings and those without.
-=== Meaningful bound forms ===
+They follow the reference syntax of traditional|simplified[pinyin], are prefixed by "CL:" and separated by commas.
-These are bound forms where a meaning can be assigned to the character. Oftentimes they appear in multiple words with the same meaning, but never by themselves. We indicate these by prefixing the sense with “(bound form)”.
+We typically omit general classifiers like 個|个[ge4] which can be applied to almost every single noun.
-For instance:
+A classifier itself can be described like so:
 <code>
-隘 隘 [[ai4]] /(bound form) narrow/(bound form) a defile; a narrow pass/
+/classifier for small round things (peas, bullets, peanuts, pills, grains etc)/
 </code>
+==== Bound forms ====
-is a bound form as you would not see 隘 alone when reading Chinese. It would always be accompanied by other characters such as 隘口, 隘路, 关隘, 狭隘 etc.
+See [[bound_forms]]
-=== Meaningless bound forms ===
+===== Punctuation =====
-These are bound forms where a meaning cannot be assigned to the character, usually because the character appears in a small number of words (usually just 1). Oftentimes these are the names of plants or animals, or terms used in literature. For these characters, the entry is simply “used in …”.
+==== Dashes and hyphens ====
-For example:
+We do not use the em dash (—). Ranges of numbers, dates, times etc should be separated by the en dash (–). In other cases, either the en dash or hyphen (-) should be used following standard English grammar.
-<code>
+==== Middle dot ====
-鮟 𩽾 [an1] /used in 鮟鱇|𩽾𩾌[an1 kang1]/Taiwan pr. [an4]/
-鱇 𩾌 [[kang1]] /used in 鮟鱇|𩽾𩾌[an1kang1]/
-鮟鱇 𩽾𩾌 [an1 kang1] /anglerfish/
-</code>
-𩽾 and 𩾌 by themselves have no meaning, as they are always used with each other. 𩽾𩾌 is the anglerfish.
+Middle dots are often used for separating western names:
-A small number of meaningless bound forms are used in multiple words, in this case, all should be listed. When the words have the same or similar meaning, they should be combined into one sense, when the words have different meanings, they should be separated into different senses.
-Different senses
 <code>
-螞 蚂 [[ma3]] /used in 螞蟥|蚂蟥[ma3huang2]/used in 螞蟻|蚂蚁[ma3yi3]/
+大衛·艾登堡 大卫·艾登堡 [[Da4wei4 Ai4deng1bao3]] /David Attenborough (1926–), British naturalist and broadcaster/
-蝲 蝲 [la4] /used in 蝲蛄[la4 gu3]/used in 蝲蝲蛄[la4 la4 gu3]/
-蛞 蛞 [[kuo4]] /used in 蛞螻|蛞蝼[kuo4lou2]/used in 蛞蝓[kuo4yu2]/
-猻 狲 [[sun1]] /used in 猢猻|猢狲[hu2sun1]/used in 兔猻|兔狲[tu4sun1]/
 </code>
-Same sense
+Note: A middle dot was present within the pinyin in v1, but no longer used in v2. The v2 pinyin format allows us to clearly group the characters of the first name and last name, so the middle dot is no longer necessary.
-<code>
-箢 箢 [yuan1] /used in 箢箕[yuan1 ji1] and 箢篼[yuan1 dou1]/Taiwan pr. [wan3]/
-癔 癔 [[yi4]] /used in 癔病[yi4bing4] and 癔症[yi4zheng4]/
-咐 咐 [[fu4]] /used in 吩咐[fen1fu5] and 囑咐|嘱咐[zhu3fu5]/
-</code>
-An example of both
+==== Comma ====
+Commas are sometimes used in proverbs or longer expressions:
 <code>
-螂 螂 [[lang2]] /used in 螞螂|蚂螂[ma1lang2]/used in 蜣螂[qiang1lang2] and 虼螂[ge4lang2]/used in 螳螂[tang2lang2]/used in 蟑螂[zhang1lang2]/
+分久必合，合久必分 分久必合，合久必分 [[fen1jiu3-bi4he2, he2jiu3-bi4fen1]] /lit. that which is long divided must unify, and that which is long unified must divide (proverb, from Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義|三国演义[San1guo2 Yan3yi4])/fig. things are constantly changing/
 </code>
+The comma within the Chinese characters should be the "fullwidth comma": ，. The comma within the pinyin should be the regular comma followed by a space.
+Note: In v1, a space was also inserted before the comma in the pinyin (so the pinyin would contain " , "). The space before the comma has been phased out in v2.
-===== Punctuation =====
+==== Enumeration comma ====
+The enumeration comma "、", known as 顿号, is used to separate items in a list. It's used rarely in CC-CEDICT, but appears in a handful of entries. Syntax-wise, it's treated the same way as the fullwidth comma (no space in the Chinese characters, and corresponds to a regular comma followed by a space in the pinyin).
-==== Middle dot ====
+<code>
+八字方針 八字方针 [[ba1zi4 fang1zhen1]] /a policy expressed as an eight-character slogan/(esp.) the eight-character slogan for the economic policy proposed by Li Fuchun 李富春[Li3 Fu4chun1] in 1961: 調整、鞏固、充實、提高|调整、巩固、充实、提高[tiao2zheng3, gong3gu4, chong1shi2, ti2gao1] "adjust, consolidate, enrich and improve"/
+</code>
-Middle dots are often used for separating western names:\\
+===== 兒|儿, erhua and rhotacization =====
-珍・奧斯汀 珍・奥斯汀 [Zhen1 · Ao4 si1 ting1] /Jane Austen (1775-1817), English novelist/
-A double width middle dot is used in the Chinese, a single width middle dot padded with spaces on both sides is used in the pinyin.
+The 兒|儿 character can be used in three different ways
+. 兒|儿[er2] is not-optional because it's its own syllable (meaning "child" or "son")
-==== Comma ====
-Commas are sometimes used in Chinese proverbs:
 <code>
-人為財死，鳥為食亡 人为财死，鸟为食亡 [[ren2 wei4 cai2 si3, niao3 wei4 shi2 wang2]] /Human beings die in pursuit of wealth, and birds die in pursuit of food/.../
+女兒 女儿 [[nu:3er2]] /daughter/
 </code>
-A **double width comma** is used in the Chinese. In the pinyin, **a single width comma followed by a space** is used.
+. 兒|儿[r5] is a non-optional suffix because it changes both the pronunciation and meaning of the word
+<code>
+頭兒 头儿 [[tou2r5]] /leader/
+</code>
-===== Retroflex finals =====
+. 兒|儿[r5] is an optional suffix, changing the pronunciation of the word but not the meaning
-There are 3 kinds of R-ised words that use the 兒/儿 character:
-  - 兒/儿 is not-optional because it's its own syllable (usually meaning "son," so daughter is actually "girl son") - 女兒/女儿 nǚ'ér
-  - 兒/儿 is not-optional because it changes the definition of the word and is tacked on to the preceding syllable - 头兒/头儿 tóur (leader) as opposed to 头 tóu (head)
-  - 兒/儿 is an optional northern pronunciation (er2hua4) and is tacked on to the preceding syllable - 花兒/花儿 huār (flower) as opposed to 花 huā (flower)
-These 3 cases should be formatted as follows:
-  - 女兒 女儿 [nu:3 er2] /daughter/
-  - 頭兒 头儿 [tou2 r5] /leader/
-  - 花兒 花儿 [hua1 r5] /erhua variant of 花/flower/
-//Please note: words ending with 'r5' (such as 'hua1 r5') are presented as a -r joined with the previous syllable (eg. 'huar1') in some dictionaries using CC-CEDICT, such as the [[http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php|MDBG Chinese-English dictionary]].//
+<code>
+花兒 花儿 [[hua1r5]] /erhua form of 花[hua1]/
+</code>
+//Please note: words ending with 'r5' (such as 'hua1r5') are presented as a -r joined with the previous syllable (eg. 'huar1') in some dictionaries using CC-CEDICT, such as the [[http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php|MDBG Chinese-English dictionary]].//
 ===== Choice of entries and translations =====
@@ Line 284: / Line 227: @@
-===== General principles of translation =====
+===== Romanization of foreign languages =====
-The English should be meaningful, not horribly ugly, and bear a close relation to the Chinese meaning. It should correspond to something that could be used naturally by an English speaker (I think Arthur Waley has some advice saying that just because a text is about magnetohydrodynamics, it doesn't follow that it has to be horribly ugly).
+When transcribing foreign words in definitions, please use the following romanization methods:
+  * Japanese: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn_romanization|Modified Hepburn]]
+  * Korean: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Romanization_of_Korean|Revised Romanization of Korean]]
-On the other hand, a translation always loses something, and the translator can compensate by substituting an English equivalent (e.g. a biblical or Shakespearian allusion in place of a Confucian idiom).
+If an alternative romanization method is more popular for a certain word, that version can be added as an additional translation.
-Names of persons should say dates if possible (birth, death, years in which the person was active in a certain role, etc), what interest the person has (writer, general, pop star, etc), brief indications of CV (e.g. took part in a revolution, was murdered, wrote famous book, etc). For example:\\ 胡錦濤 胡锦涛 [Hu2 Jin3 tao1] /Hu Jintao (1942-), president of PRC from 2003/
+===== Non-Chinese characters =====
-Names of plants, animals, musical instruments should give common name and scientific name when appropriate; there is a particular problem of how specific the word is -- a plant may mean a minor variety within a species, or may refer to an entire taxonomic family. Different writers will use it to mean the common family, or the particular item of salad on their plate at present.
+On occasion the Chinese language uses English letters or numerals to write a word. For example, we have
-Most words have more than one meaning, and more than one grammatical function. Care is needed not to concentrate only on a specific occurrence to the exclusion of others. e.g . the actual occurrence may be a verb in the past participle (say "overthrown") whereas the word may also mean "destruction", "to topple" etc.
+<code>
+# English letters
+ky ky [[ky]] /(slang) socially tone-deaf; unable to read the room (from Japanese KY, acronym of 空気が読めない "kuuki ga yomenai")/
+coser coser [[coser]] /cosplayer/
-There are 20,000 Chinese characters in the more advanced dictionaries, of which many are obscure, never used, and will not have correct definitions in online or paper dictionaries. This is the boundary of knowledge. (Exactly the same applies to big English dictionaries.) These obscure characters appear on modern websites, and one sometimes needs to give a definition. It is reasonable to admit (precise meaning unknown), and give an indication of what one can deduce.
+# Mix of English and Chinese
+e人 e人 [[e-ren2]] /(slang) extroverted person/
+勿cue 勿cue [[wu4-cue]] /(Internet slang) don't call on me; don't drag me in/
-===== Variants =====
+# Numbers
+D打印 3D打印 [[san1-D da3yin4]] /to 3D print; 3D printing/
+後 95后 [[jiu3wu3hou4]] /people born between 1995-01-01 and 1999-12-31/Gen Z (abbr. for 95後|95后[jiu3wu3hou4] + 00後|00后[ling2ling2hou4])/
+996 [[jiu3jiu3liu4]] /9am–9pm, six days a week (work schedule)/
+</code>
-Many characters have variants, sometimes more than one, sometimes with identical meaning or quite different meanings. Some choice of variants found in texts on websites will arise because of the different input methods, and the user may have had no intention of using the variant.
+As a general rule of thumb:
+  - When writing the Hanzi fields, non-Chinese characters should stay the same.
+  - When writing the pinyin, for English letters use the same letters in the pinyin (ky -> ky), but for numbers write out the pinyin for the corresponding Chinese character (9 -> jiu3)
-You can get rough usage frequency information by searching the alternative word forms in Google. Please use this syntax to make sure that Google doesn't perform any automatic variant translations:
-<code>+"word"</code>
-Additionally you can use Google's advanced search to specify the language to either 'Chinese (Traditional)' or 'Chinese (Simplified)' to prevent Japanese web pages from influencing the results. For example:\\
+==== Technical details, and the use of {} ====
-Chinese (Traditional) pages for +"撐竿跳高"\\
-,700 Chinese (Simplified) pages for +"撑竿跳高"\\
-,750 Chinese (Traditional) pages for +"撐杆跳高"\\
-,900 Chinese (Simplified) pages for +"撑杆跳高"
-It often happens that Google tells you that +"Xx" occurs 200 times more frequently than +"XX", in which case Xx should be in CC-CEDICT as a regular entry, and XX only as "XX XX [pin1 yin1] /variant of Xx/definition/".
+When parsing the traditional and simplified fields, Hanzi and numbers are treated as individual sections, while consecutive English letters are grouped together into a single section. For example a hypothetical headword "甲abc123乙丙" would be parsed into 7 sections: 甲, abc, 1, 2, 3, 乙, 丙.
-When there are alternative forms of the same expression, and the less common form is at most 5 times less common, the less common entry should have /also written ../ referring to the more common form, e.g. 撐竿跳高 撑竿跳高 [cheng1 gan1 tiao4 gao1] /pole-vaulting/also written 撐杆跳高|撑杆跳高/.
+The pinyin is first split by spaces and punctuation, and then parsed based on valid pinyin syllables. One way of writing pinyin for the hypothetical headword above could be "jia3 abc yi1-er4-san1 yi3bing3". Note there are many valid ways that the pinyin could be segmented, for example "jia3 abc yi1er4 san1yi3bing3" or "jia3-abc-yi1-er4-san1-yi3-bing3" (these may not make sense from an orthographic point of view, but will be parsed correctly by the CC-CEDICT website). The only requirement is that the "abc" is separated "yi1". Any of the above examples will be parsed into 7 pinyin sections.
+It is a requirement that the number of parsed sections in the Hanzi matches the number of parsed sections in the pinyin. For the vast majority of entries, this does not pose a problem. Almost all Chinese characters are one syllable in length, and due to how the parsing logic works, numbers and English letters will be parsed correctly as long as the pinyin is segmented correctly. Problems arise in rare situations such as
-**PROPOSED CHANGES**
+<code>
+兡 兡 [[bai3ke4]] /.../
+</code>
-(Summary: (1) Get rid of "also written", using "variant of" instead; and (2) Format "variant of" entries in line with points 2a and 2b below.)
+where a single character corresponds to two syllables. In these cases, {}'s may be used to manually group a section, so we can write
-(THE VARIANT RULES ABOVE CAN BE DELETED IF AND WHEN THESE CHANGES ARE ACCEPTED.)
-(Also, the following notes can be tidied up and edited to remove references to "I" and "me".)
+<code>
+兡 兡 [[{bai3ke4}]] /.../
+</code>
-Regarding "also written..."
+which indicates "bai3ke4" is a single pinyin section, matching the single Hanzi section of 兡.
-According to our wiki, there are two kinds of variants.
+Another problem arises for entries with a number with multiple digits. Consider a hypothetical entry such as
-https://cc-cedict.org/wiki/format:syntax#variants
-) Where the less common form is relatively common (> 20% of the frequency of the more common form).
+<code>
+11 [[shi2yi1]] /eleven/
+</code>
-) Where the less common form is much less common (< 20% of the frequency of the more common form)
+which implies that the first 1 is pronounced "shi2" and the second 1 is pronounced "yi1". Or the entry
-For the first type, the def of the less common form should look like this (according to the wiki):
+<code>
-<code>/definition/also written .../</code>
+21 [[er4shi2yi1]] /twenty one/
+</code>
-And for the second type, the def of the less common form should be
+which poses a different problem - we have two Hanzi sections but three pinyin sections due to the extra "shi2" that is not present in the hanzi. To solve these issues, we have decided to group the number in {}'s and write the number out in the pinyin field:
-<code>/variant of .../definition/</code>
-In practice, what has been happening in recent years is this:
+<code>
+{21}三體綜合症 {21}三体综合症 [[{21} san1ti3 zong1he2zheng4]] /trisomy; Down's syndrome/
+</code>
-. We have been ignoring the "also written ..." syntax, except maybe when we edit existing entries
+Note this is different from the 996 example above, which is treated as 3 digits "nine nine six" and parses without {}'s, not the number "nine hundred ninety six", which would need {}'s.
-. With variants,
+To check whether an entry will be parsed correctly, you can use this tool:
+https://cc-cedict.org/editor/editor.php?handler=ParseEntry
-a) if it's a full variant (i.e. exactly the same definition), we use /variant of .../ without adding the definition.
-b) if it's a partial variant (i.e. only some of the senses of one form apply to the other form) we use
-<code>/definition (variant of ...)/</code>
-Part of the rationale for these changes is this: It's a hassle to check whether entries satisfy the "20% criteria", and the percentage probably changes over time, and depending on which corpus you use to get the percentage.
-Using the Editor website's search function, I got about 3600 results for "variant of" and only about 360 results for "also written".
-One idea that I've had in mind for a while is to clean up all these by
-a) rewriting "also written" definitions by using "variant of"
-b) regularizing the format of the "variant of" entries in line with points 2a and 2b above.
-===== Romanization of foreign languages =====
-When transcribing foreign words in definitions, please use the following romanization methods:
-  * Japanese: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn_romanization|Modified Hepburn]]
-  * Korean: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Romanization_of_Korean|Revised Romanization of Korean]]
-If an alternative romanization method is more popular for a certain word, that version can be added as an additional translation.