Oh Dear! I imported a whole bunch of vocabulary and the entries look like this!!!
가명 alias pseudonym假名 ← term
“” <–definition
Yikes! that was NOT what I was trying to do!!! And now I can fix the definitions just fine, one by one, of course:
가명 alias pseudonym假名 ← term
alias, pseudonym 假名 <–definition
but how do I change the terms themselves?
Hi, I also am not able to correctly import vocabulary. I get a message that no new words are imported, or that “term or phrase are missing”, or that the definition and the term are added together like your example… there is always something going wrong, and I can not find decent instructions or a ‘template’ that can be used…
You can not change the term! you will have to search them (one by one) and delete them (one by one).
What I now do, is just make a list of new terms in the upper window (rather than adding a .csv file, because it does not work) and then manually search for all my new imported words, and manually add a meaning (= definition) to each of the newly imported words. It takes a lot of time!
Unfortunately terms can’t be changed/edited on the Vocabulary page. I suggest you remove those entries and import them again.
Excellent advice! I removed them all and imported a few test words without definitions and then added definitions, but then I found an even better way (I think.) Just import the list of words with definitions as a private lesson and then make LingQ’s out of them one by one. 
Dear Zoran,
I agree with @Erik8970: I don’t think there are clear step-by-step instruction (at least I can’t find them) on how to import new vocabulary. I’m trying to create new lingqs through the “Import Terms” text box, but to no avail. I can only add the term, but I can’t add an example phrase, definition, etc., because all those different elements get blended in the term field. Please, can you refer us to a comprehensive post or tutorial we may have overlooked? Thanks!
Hi @malaga.1979, I’m not @zoran, but here’s what works for me:
Take the sample sentences that you want used in the lingq’s, and create a document containing all of them. Then import the whole thing as a lesson.
Then either use the auto lingQ browser plugin from Rooster to add them all at once to your vocabulary list. After that, you can use lingQ observer to look through the new vocabulary and quickly adjust anything that doesn’t look quite right, or go to the vocabulary and filter by recently added, and look down the list to quickly make sure all the def’s etc. are what you wanted; from there you can easily just click on any word to fix as needed.
That’s my work around, with a million thanks to @roosterburton who has been hard at work making the LingQ experience ever better.
Your mileage may vary.
Thank you, @WillowMeDown! That sounds like a good workaround, but this paid platform is supposed to have a functioning feature to add vocabulary, so… why not use it?
I listen to podcasts, read an article in a printed newspaper, etc… so I pick terms or expressions here and there, and I would like to add them on the fly to my lingq database to have all my language learning centralized. Hopefully the “Import Terms” text box can do just that. 
You can add vocabulary. Just make a plain list of vocabulary only, one word on each line, maybe a blank line between them, and just add the words all at once using the add vocabulary function. You can change the status (1-5) and add the definitions yourself later if needed. Similarly if you just have one sentence you want added to your repertoire (including the new vocabulary) there’s nothing preventing uploading a super-short “lesson” and auto-lingQ’ing it, or editing an existing “lesson” to add one additional sentence.
Thanks! Yes, I’ve done that, but my expectation was (and still is) to be able to add the word along with its definition, source sentence, etc. in one go right from that text box (in the same way the CSV method works), by separing the different fields (term, source sentence, definition, etc.) with a given character. The idea is to feed the database with the minimum hassle (no imports, no going back to the lingq later to add necessary information, etc.) whenever I happen to pick a word I don’t know outside Lingq.
Yes, that would be nice. When I purchased LingQ I didn’t even know about the add vocabulary function; the fact that it was possible at all was a nice added perk over and above what I paid for. But I guess if someone were clearly promised this functionality in writing by the company prior to purchase, then they would be a bit disappointed if it didn’t work as promised.
I didn’t see any specific claim as to how the Import Terms box works before signing up, to be honest. I just expected it to allow the user to add terms with all the information needed. From my point of view, it makes sense, but maybe I’m the only one with that expectation! :). Anyway, that’s why I would like to know if there is a post explaining how that feature (the text box, not the CSV file import) works exactly and if it allows to create complete lingqs, including definition, source text, etc.
Edit: Screenshot of the text box malaga.1979 mentions:
I don’t think I saw anything related to this in the Knowledge Base for LingQ. This would be a great recommendation for LingQ to add a guide/how-to under the Importing section of the knowledge base!
I hope LingQ expands their Knowledge Base a bit more/more regularly so users can learn more about LingQ’s features earlier on in their language learning journey’s.
Edit: I did find this post below, but this just shows the .csv stuff like malaga.1979 mentioned:
See this example of a CSV/terms import.
You need to make a google sheet and then download as CSV
Thanks. Yes, I learned the CSV method from the post jpp025 mentioned. However, I can find no instructions on how to create comprehensive lingqs (definition, source sentences, etc.) with the Import Terms text box, without importing anything, but just typing the relevant information in that box instead.
I have tried over and over again, but importing vocabulary lists by uploading a .csv file just does not work. (see also what malaga.1979 writes)
Now I just create a word document with the words I want to add (this way, I can write also the special characters typical for certain languages) and then copy all of those in the box ‘import terms’ under ‘vocabulary import’. That will take a few seconds before LingQ has added them. Then I go over my list of words in the Word document, search them in my vocabulary list (in LingQ) and add for every word the translation in my language as well as grammar tags. It takes quite some time to go over my whole list of words, but for me it’s worth the time.
Of course, it would be better, much easier and less time consuming if it would be possible to import directly from Word, Excel, .txt or .csv INCLUDING the translations and grammar tags from there, but that just does not work.
Thanks for this example. I have tried similar with an Excel which I then save as .csv but it never seemed to work. When I open the .csv file with text editor (from Microsoft) then I see that the separator used in my .csv file is not comma ( , ) but semicolon ( ; ) and I don’t know why that is.
I have also already replaced those semicolons by commas and imported that modified .csv file into LingQ, but it does not help either.
In your Google sheet, I see that you have added a semicolon ( ; ) after the words in the column ‘meaning1’. Is there a reason for this semicolon?
The Tag1 column may not be supported by the LingQ importer. I never got it to work anyway. I added them for my own CSV import mechanism which mimiced the LingQ one.
When CSV importing you need to replace all commas (,) otherwise the import will fail. I usually just mass replace them with ;
Maybe just import to google sheets and download as CSV and see if the problem is fixed.
That’s quick! Thanks.
But honestly, I do not understand what you write:
What about the semicolon you use in column ‘Meaning1’: is that semicolon important?
On the LingQ import page it mentions they support tag1, tag2… etc but I never got it to work. In my extension I use a different mechanism which mimics the LingQ importer and I made sure tag1/2 worked.
From google sheets You just set the columns up as specified on the LingQ import page. Then press download to CSV. Before you download just remove any commas in any of the columns as these will throw out the CSV order.
I’ve found that when I just import the list into a lesson and auto-lingq, many of the definitions and other hard work have already been created by other diligent people who have gone before me, so it really isn’t any harder to create the lingq’s within a lesson than all the work you guys are describing
