I’ve been using Lingq for about a week now, so I’m still a new user and learning all these features myself. Initially, I was tagging each word as I came across them, but it became too tedious. After a couple of days of that, I reset the whole language to start over. I then imported about 20,000 Japanese words using the .csv file method with multiple appropriate tags for each word. What I found is if you reimport the same word, it will amend the additional tags. I’m using tags to indicate the JLPT level, whether the word is Katakana, and which textbook (Genki, Quartet, Tobira) along with the chapter number the vocabulary word appears in. Apparently, the tag names allow for spaces. I almost gave up on the .csv file method, until I realized I had meanings with commas in them. After I got rid of the commas, it was a quick and simple process. So yes, the .csv file method does work and is flexible enough for you to set up your vocabulary, meanings, and tags however you want to set it up. I used Google Sheets to create the .csv files. I sourced the various terms and meanings from shared Anki decks that I extracted into Google Sheets.
Maybe someday I’ll take the time to learn about .csv files. … Glad to hear it worked out for you. Personally I’ve got my hands full with the three languages I’m trying to learn, no bandwidth to learn stuff on the tech side. 
I had importing issues for ages that totally screwed up my vocab list as the app showed anything with an accent as a ‘?’. I manually deleted the entries, then used Numbers on a mac to save the CSV, which supports special characters - Excel does not, which was the problem. Also make sure you remove any empty columns before you save it. Then you should be able to upload your special characters. Make sure you put a tag against your vocab in the file so if it goes wrong you can easily filter it and try again.
Thank you for this valuable exchange everyone. LingQ support has been absolutely abysmal on this topic - apparently my issue has been filed to look at by the technical team, which is useless because this thread helped me get the Import Vocabulary function to work.
Here’s some things I learned:
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I had tons of commas in my list, so I replaced all those using Find + Replace.
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The upload won’t be successful if you leave the “Term” column blank. My sheet only had a phrase and the english meaning. When “Term” was blank it wouldn’t upload, so I copied all my “Phrase” column data into the “Term” column. This is the point where I finally got everything to work, so I’m happy enough here. I don’t know if that will create some kind of issue down the line though.
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I want to highlight the importance of the ‘tag1’ column as I didn’t use it for my initial upload. Make sure you come up with a unique tag so that when you want to review your vocab, you can search the tag to only review that specific list if you want.
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If you are using a Google Sheet from some kind of online course, keep an eye on whether there are multiple sheets/tabs in the file - there’s a possibility that may cause an issue as well, but I can’t confirm.
It’s clear that the Import Vocabulary function is not a high priority for Lingq and also that the support staff don’t have the proper training to even give some basic guidance on how to use it. I suggested they make a video that does a walkthrough, but I’m not holding my breath on that.
Oh well, I got it working and that’s about all the energy I can put into this.
Thanks to everyone here for helping to solve this.
Can you show me some rows of your vocabulary? I would like to understand how the vocabolary import works. Thank you!
I just have tried your Finnish google sheet downloaded by me as .csv file, but the vocabulary’s uploading doesnt work. What mistake I do?
What happens when you try to import it?