That's "rubbish"!

HanziHero
1

I noticed that I typed the wrong meaning for 垃圾袋 when I wrote rubbish bag. Only to see that the correct answer was garbage bag or trash bag. My first thought was that the translation / dictionaries you were using are North American based.

Easy, I thought. I was going to go find a translation for 垃圾袋 that would show that the correct translation should be rubbish bag.

Even though in Australia we only really use “rubbish”, I spent almost an hour going through various forums online about how different countries have different words and different meanings to each word for rubbish. Trash, waste, garbage, refuse, ect. But I found nothing that definitively stated 垃圾袋 = rubbish bag

I still couldn’t find the a translation for 垃圾 that would give me the term I know for it: “rubbish”.

I just saw 忌口 meaning suggestion, and I wonder if there’s a list of dictionaries you use when creating Hanzi Hero? Or a place we could recommend dictionaries?

I’m currently adding my own definition to each word as a I go, I’ve added rubbish to 垃圾 and rubbish bag to 垃圾袋, but I secretly wonder if there’s a way to get Australian terms onto the cards: https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/dictionary/

2

As a fellow Australian I’ve had a few of these moments as well. Another one was colour (just spelling rather than unique term but still). When the dev’s were around they’d add legit alternates to the official list if you posted about it (hence colour is a legit option for 颜色 now) but it’s usually easier to just add them yourself as you’ve been doing. I know there have been other weirdnesses, but I’m actually struggling to remember any of them so clearly not that big a deal lol

As for dictionaries, from my understanding they check a lot but in the end it’s just their own gut check to pick a final key word. Same reason they don’t have multiple meanings or multiple pinyin for characters that have it - they’re just picking something that’s unique within HH as the anchor, and it’s up to you to fill in the rest. So I don’t think there really is a dictionary as the source, while they might be referenced at the end of the day it’s the HH’s dev’s brain as the true source.

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