I am trying to make a custom vocab list for a very specific game nomenclature. This would involve changing, masking or in some way adding to the "standard" English definitions of the words. Is this possible to do?

A concrete example:

The word “生物“ translates specifically to the word "Creature" in the given nomenclature. However the English definition that comes up is not editable and displays definitions that are similar but not exactly "Creature".

You can edit any definitions in a list before you study it. You just can't make other people see those definitions (however, if there's a part of a definition missing, you can always submit as a correction).

To edit the words in a list you first have to add them and hit save or whatnot. Afterwards clicking on the characters will bring up the popup box. You can edit the definition/add mnemonics from here.

I see, thanks for the information. That will be useful for myself, however not for other people who wish to study from the list. Maybe in the future we'll be able to associate a custom definition for words in a list that everyone can see?

The way you describe was the way it originally worked, and it was much more hassle than it was worth. Standardizing on one definition throughout the site makes things a lot easier for us, and more powerful. So I don't think we will go back to that per-list definition model--sorry!

Just curious: what game is the nomenclature for?

Magic the Gathering

This is a special case of a more general problem, which is that words and characters have a large set of definitions, and it's impractical for everyone to learn them all. For example, 航空母舰 (aircraft carrier) is a slangy insult when it's used to describe a woman. So, should the Skritter definition include that specialized slang meaning? Probably not. There are many, many different meanings for words, and Skritter is not the best place to learn all of those meanings. What *WOULD* make sense is to learn to read those characters in context (i.e. in the game) and then come to Skritter to practice writing them. Or first learn their standard meanings on Skritter and then learn the alternate meanings in the game.

James

Uhh. I had just added aircraft carrier to my queue.

It has another meaning?

Ah.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese_profanity

Interesting, here on the mainland it would be more common to say 飞机场 none of my mainland friends knew 航空母舰 'other' meaning until I told them it was the same as 飞机场.