I’ve come across “diagram” in translations from Chinese weiqi sources, but I’m not sure what is meant by this. Would the usual term in English be something like game record/kifu, opening patterns/fuseki, patterns generally or an idea that’s not got an easy translation?
It’s apparently translated in Chinese-English Dictionary of Weiqi Terms but I don’t have access to that.
Yes, 圖 is a very general word not just for weiqi, anything that can be shown as “image-like”, anything that you can draw. For game record/kifu we usually use the word 譜 or more specifically 棋譜 (in fact this is how the word kifu came from ki = 棋, fu = 譜). But you can also use a more general word to describe a kifu showing as an image (i.e. 圖). And in ancient time, this word would generally mean a game position.
You can also use more descriptive adj words to narrow it down, like 變化圖 (which would means variations image/diagram), what’s important is the adj words before it, not the word 圖 itself that describes the meaning. (like 布局圖 opening diagram) but in the general, adj can be “simplified” so we can use 圖 1 as diagram 1, 圖 2 as diagram 2, instead of using the whole word, if we already know the context is about variations (so we don’t have to write 變化圖1, 變化圖2).
If you want to translate it precisely, you need the context within, or before and after the paragraph in order to know its true meaning.