If I enabled this setting now, does it add every individual character or on characters with their own meanings. What do people think of this feature, do you use it or not as it seems to be at default off.

I personally think that it is a great feature. Hard to quantify...but I reckon my comprehension has improved leaps and bounds since I enabled that feature. It really helps to know what the particular meaning is for each character that makes up the word.

I tried it out in the beginning, but then realized that I had far too many reviews to do after a while. Also, I can’t be always sure if the character by itself qualifies as a word, so in order to avoid confusion, I turned it off.

I find it useful, sometimes understanding the components can help with understanding the word. I started Mandarin because of such a compound though - Big Study which is University :)

Some characters have little or no meaning on their own, also the connection between the meaning of the character and of the whole word is often quite obscure.

I switched this setting off (and wiped my list and started again) a while ago. I am trying to speak and read acceptably well, when I can write a character well enough to read it I mark it as correct.

When I had this setting on, half my reviews would be for (using an English language analogy) meaningless syllables. Imagine trying to learn English by learning the meanings of "ing", "ish", "er", etc.

However I can see how someone who has more time available and who is is aiming for a deeper knowledge and understanding of the language would find this setting useful.

I actually wish Skritter went one step further and had an option to also add each character's components all the way down to the radicals.

@Lechuan. I second that! I think you should, in the iOS app, also be able to add components/characters to lists "on the fly' without having to leave the study session

I third that!

I often find myself digging down on the website to get the 'bits' and do find it useful. But, I think it's something to do with how my mind works, where detail is important to me - other prefer big picture and broader strokes (perhaps literaly)!

lechuan, I like the feature too! If a "less useful" word pops up (or one that I don't expect to use separate from the word for some time), then I just ban the character in question.

In that case, you just have to remember to check which characters you have banned every couple months...

Is there a way to force add all the contained characters. I have set this option on now, but do I have to wait for all old characters to appear in new words before they are added as individual characters. I like this setting because I already learnt a lot of the individual characters and radicals through memrise.

You can set your lists back to the adding from their first sections, bjnsharp, and that will eventually get you all the components that you missed while that setting was not active.

Ok that would be good as i think at this stage i know most so would be good to get them learnt. How do I set it to start adding from the beginning?

1) Go to your study settings: http://www.skritter.com/account/settings-study

2) Turn off "Also Add Characters When Adding Words"

3) Save

4) Turn on "Also Add Characters When Adding Words"

5) Save

6) When it asks you which lists to reset to the beginning, choose all of them

You could also do it on a list-by-list basis by going to each list's page and editing your study settings, setting yourself to the first section again.

If I have "Characters When Adding Words" turnede on and I delete the "HSK Characters lists," will I then still be tested in the characters?

Not unless those characters are in words in your other lists that you added while you had the setting on. The words' sub-characters are also associated with the lists that they were added from, so if you didn't add those characters from any other lists (whether by themselves or in other words), they'll be deactivated when you remove that list.