Phrase Card Style Guide

Audience: contributors adding Chinese phrases to ChinaOps SOPs.

Goal: one clear phrase per real situation — useful under stress, not a phrasebook dump.

Required HTML shape

<div class="phrase-card">
  <div class="zh">中文句子</div>
  <div class="py">pīn yīn with tone marks when possible</div>
  <div class="en">Short plain English.</div>
</div>

CSS for .phrase-card lives in assets/css/chinaops.css. Do not invent alternate class names.

Rules (must)

Rule	Why
One card per scene	Multiple cards for the same need confuse printers and readers
Spoken language	Prefer what people say at a counter, not textbook formal
Short English	ESL + stress: under ~12 English words
No dual meanings	One English gloss only
Place after Plain English	Readers see meaning first, then the phrase
Match the guide	Taxi guide → meter phrase; do not paste random food phrases

Rules (should)

Use tone-marked pinyin (qǐng) when you can; spaces between syllables.
Keep full-width Chinese punctuation natural: ？ 。 ！
Prefer polite forms (请…) for service staff.
If the phrase is Shanghai-only slang, mark scope in the surrounding text.

Do not

Do not add three synonyms for the same action on one page.
Do not use machine-translated nonsense without a native or field check.
Do not put secrets, personal data, or hotel-specific numbers inside phrase cards.
Do not style with inline CSS; use the shared component.

Dedup checklist before PR

Search the repo for the same zh string.
If it already exists on the print pack or a more central emergency guide, link there instead of copying.
Update repo-root print-pack.html only for high-frequency phrases used offline.

Good vs weak examples

Good

<div class="phrase-card">
  <div class="zh">请打表</div>
  <div class="py">qǐng dǎ biǎo</div>
  <div class="en">Please use the meter.</div>
</div>

Weak

<div class="phrase-card">
  <div class="zh">劳驾请您使用计价器进行本次行程的计费工作好吗</div>
  <div class="py">very long formal sentence</div>
  <div class="en">Would you be so kind as to utilize the taximeter for the purpose of calculating the fare for this journey?</div>
</div>

Template: TEMPLATE_ENHANCED_SOP.md (repo root)
Print pack: Print Pack · raw file print-pack.html
Contributing: CONTRIBUTING.md (repo root)

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