Writing rules

This repository is an English dictionary for Korean-speaking kids. Read README.md for the layout and the steps for adding a word.

The reader is a young child who is still learning English.

Pronunciation

The line under the title says the word two ways: American English in IPA, then the same sounds in Hangul for a kid who cannot read IPA yet.

• IPA between slashes, with ˈ before the loudest syllable: /bəˈnænə/.
• Where Americans say the vowel two ways, write /ɔː/: dog is /dɔːɡ/, not /dɑːɡ/, so the same vowel looks the same in every entry.
• Hangul that follows the English sounds, not the Korean loanword: banana is 버내너, not 바나나. Bold the loudest syllable.

English meaning

The meaning must be easier to read than the word it explains.

• Two to four sentences, ten words or fewer each.
• Common, everyday words only. If a word in the meaning is harder than the word being explained, use a simpler one.
• Start with what it is, as a full sentence — An apple is a round fruit. — then say what it looks like, what it does, or what it is for.
• A verb starts with what doing it means, also as a full sentence: When you invite a friend, you ask them to come. An adjective starts with what being that way means: If something is huge, it is very, very big.
• Concrete over abstract: things a kid can see, hear, touch, taste, or do.

한국어 뜻

• The everyday word a Korean child would say: mom is 엄마, not 어머니.
• Only the meanings a kid needs. Leave out rare, technical, and adult senses.
• A verb in its dictionary form: invite is 초대하다. An adjective in the form that goes before a noun: huge is 아주 큰.

Examples

• One to three short sentences a kid might say or hear.
• Each has a natural Korean translation, with 나 for I and a friendly 해요 ending: 나는 사과를 좋아해요.
• Bold the word in the English sentence and its meaning in the Korean one. Keep punctuation outside the bold — "**사과**"를, not **"사과"**를: bold that ends in punctuation cannot close right before a Korean letter, and GitHub shows the asterisks instead.
• A verb's Korean meaning is bold with its ending, as it appears in the sentence: 미나가 나를 초대했어요.

Title emoji

Put one emoji before the word when one clearly shows it: 🍎 apple. Leave it out when none does — a misleading picture is worse than none.

Quiz

Three questions that check the English meaning, so a kid finds out whether they understood it.

• Ask only about what the English meaning says, in its words or easier ones: What does a cat say?
• Three choices per question, exactly one right. Make the wrong ones plainly wrong — silly is fine — never half true: a banana is not "black", because old ones are.
• Vary where the right choice sits. The site shuffles them anyway.
• List the answers in order in the <details> block, written exactly like the right choice. The site checks taps against it, and leaves a quiz whose answers do not match as plain text.

More than one meaning

Give a word a second meaning only when a kid needs both — orange is the fruit and the color. Then number the meanings and keep the numbers lined up:

• 한국어 뜻 and English meaning are numbered lists, one item per meaning. Each English item follows the rules above on its own.
• Examples has one example per meaning, numbered the same way.
• The quiz asks about every meaning.
• The part-of-speech line lists every part of speech the meanings use: noun, adjective · 명사, 형용사.
• The README row lists every Korean meaning: 오렌지, 주황색.

words/orange.md is the model.

Words that sound the same

When another word sounds exactly the same — pear and pair — add a line under the part of speech in both entries, each pointing to the other:

👂 Sounds like [pair](pair.md) · 소리는 같고 뜻은 달라요.

A quiz can then use the other word's meaning as a wrong choice: What is a pear? — two things that go together.

Keeping it consistent

If a word needs something these rules do not cover yet — an irregular plural, say — write the rule in the same change, and update TEMPLATE.md too if every entry should follow it. Every later entry then takes the same shape.

Site

Pushing to main publishes the dictionary to https://ctbot000.github.io/kids-dictionary/ through GitHub Pages. The README is the home page and each file in words/ becomes a page with no front matter needed; _config.yml explains the build. On word pages, a 🔊 button says the word with the browser's own English voice, and the quiz choices become buttons to tap; both are done by the layout, so an entry needs nothing extra for them. After pushing a new word, check its page on the site.

Git

Commit and push to main once the entry and its row in the README table are both in.