In this paper we describe the data that will be used to compare the semantic structures that emerge from synonymy in French and in Mandarin. We aim at studying these semantic structures at both a global, lexicographic level, using lexicons, synonymy and translation dictionaries and at a more localised, experimental level, using data collected in parallel psycholinguistic experiments in French and Mandarin. After presenting our research project, the data we need to carry it out and the available resources, we analyse several linguistic issues arising from the structural differences between the French and Mandarin lexicons. We then explain the construction of the synonymy and translation networks from the available resources and detail specific choices that will enable us to produce meaningful experimental results based on this prepared data. Two kinds of networks are built: lexicographic networks and smaller movie-based networks extracted from experimental recordings. We conclude by describing how we intend to use this data.