手动

• Pinyin: shǒu dòng
• Hanzi breakdown: 手 = a pictograph of a hand; 动 = 重 + 力 (to move — applying force to something heavy; movement through physical effort)

Meaning

Manual; hand-operated. Operated or controlled by hand rather than automatically.

Directly contrasts with 自动 (automatic). Used across mechanical, digital, and procedural contexts: 手动挡 (manual transmission/gearbox), 手动对焦 (manual focus), 手动操作 (manual operation), 手动保存 (to save manually). In software and digital contexts, refers to user-initiated actions as opposed to automated processes. The term has become increasingly common as automation has expanded and the need to distinguish manual from automatic processes has grown.

Examples

1. 专业摄影师在拍摄高速运动物体时，通常会放弃相机的自动对焦功能，切换至手动对焦模式，以便对焦点的选择和锁定实施更为精确的主动控制。 When photographing high-speed moving subjects, professional photographers often abandon the camera’s autofocus and switch to manual focus so they can choose and lock the focus point with more precise control.
2. 虽已基本自动化，部分精密装配仍需技师手动完成。 Although it’s largely automated, some precision assembly still has to be done by technicians by hand.
3. 系统管理员发现自动备份任务连续三晚失败，遂立即启动手动备份程序，同时着手排查定时任务配置文件中可能导致计划执行中断的参数错误。 After the system administrator found that the automatic backup task had failed for three consecutive nights, they immediately started a manual backup and began checking the scheduled-task configuration file for parameter errors that might be interrupting execution.

Usage Guide

Context: technology, manufacturing, photography, computing, automotive

Tone: neutral

Do Say

• 在精密制造中，保留手动操作是因极高精度要求，微米级装配仍难被自动化稳定复制。(In precision manufacturing, keeping manual operation is due to extremely high accuracy requirements; micron-level assembly is still hard for automation to reproduce reliably.)
• 云存储默认自动同步，但需要先审查文件的人可改用手动同步，避免敏感文件误上传。(Cloud storage defaults to automatic sync, but people who need to review files first can switch to manual sync to avoid accidentally uploading sensitive files.)

Don't Say

• 手动 to mean laborious or difficult — it simply means 'done by hand / not automated'; do not use 手动 as an adjective implying difficulty or inconvenience; if the nuance is that something is cumbersome, use 繁琐 (tedious, cumbersome) or 费时费力 (time-consuming and laborious)

Origin & History

手 (hand) + 动 (to move, to operate — 重 heavy + 力 force, suggesting moving something with effort)

Cultural Context

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal