a while back i read a forum post about you guys working on the example sentence thing. How far are you with that? The reason I ask is, if this is planned to be released a long time from now I want to use the mnemonic box to write my own. But if I can just wait a little and have it done for me, I don't want to bother.

We have the data from the Tatoeba project, which will make things easy. But I probably won't tackle the code for storing and displaying the example sentences just yet, because I want to promote stability and civilization before my Shanghai trip (June 18 - July 4). So Scott or one of the interns here might take care of it, or I might do it in July, maybe August.

sonorier, it's worth doing. When I add new words, I often add a corresponding sentence to anki. I've been putting them in Skritter in the definition field to help me figure out which word Skritter's asking me for (first I tried it in the mnemonics field, but that didn't work as I needed to see it straight away). Better to have your own ones that you can identify quickly, rather spend time figuring out random ones that aren't yours.

Like so:
http://tiny.cc/rlizt

Wow Byzanti's webshot looks amazing! I'm actually working with Anki more too these days, anxiously waiting for the example sentence and mnemonics function in Skritter. But it seems it is def gonna be worth the wait!

@Byzanti:

Thanks for the advice. Interesting approach. You do have a slightly different way of study though it seems. I don't hide the pinyin so I don't need that extra information in the beginning. It's just that I sometimes study words that I don't know how to use.

But I might give it a shot with hidden pinyin. One drawback right now comes to mind, I would have to add much more example sentences since english def. based study would make me need it more than I would encounter words that I don't know how to use.

Have you also studied without hidden pinyin before? What do you think are the advantages/drawbacks of each style?

Studied without hidden pinyin to begin with.

While it was very easy to write words, I never really knew them properly. The pinyin gave too much away - so I wasn't really able to use the vast majority of stuff I added when speaking, for example. Hiding the pinyin lets me take recalling the word into account (if I don't recall the word correctly, I mark it red).

In fact, much of the time, it's recalling the word that's the tricky part, and not the characters. Since I've started adding my anki sentences, that's evening out a fair bit though.

If you are just studying characters, I wouldn't recommend hidden pinyin. Individual characters don't have enough information about them, and recalling their pronunciation as an individual unit isn't massively important (it will come in time, especially when seeing them used in words). However, if you are mostly studying words, I think it's a must, to really learn things properly.

(As another note; I studied Heisig's list of characters first, then really started adding words; this helped a bit. I was largely concentrating on one thing at a time; first characters, then pronunciation. I still recommend hidden pinyin with a more piecemeal approach to adding characters and words, although it might be a little harder. Doing heisig first also has disadvantages though; for the period of time you study it, your Chinese doesn't improve much).

thanks, i will give it a shot later. What you say about recalling words is right, I use different methods for that, skritter is not too efficient for that for me either. But I probably can write many words on skritter that I never get to use.

cheers

Byzanti, the sentences with cloze deletion are a great idea!

I'm trying Heisig now just to see what all the fuss is about. I have a theory about why it seems to work so well for learning characters: because most components are reused in other characters, and because you need to summon the component to mind when you review the character which reuses the component, you are getting all sorts of extra reinforcement of the components. Then that pattern continues if the compound is itself used as a component in another character.

I'm studying using readings and definition prompts as well; I'm not sure if this is what he intended but I hope it'll also pay off in the long run as there are many phonetic/signific components and knowing the component reading/definition should help with the compound's reading/definition.

what is cloze? It's not in my dictionary. But I also came across it in some chinese test.

Cloze is fill-in-the-blank. A sentence or passage with a certain portion omitted - in this case Byzanti appears to be replacing the character or word that the mnemonic is for with one underscore (_) for each character omitted, so he can recall the word contextually.

thanks

that's also the system I use mostly.

James, I used Heisig when I started for a broad character base to begin forming words with, something which you have no doubt quite surpassed the need for! I imagine if you started using it now, you'd just be learning the odd random character without context, and you wouldn't gain much from it.

Now, I hate to see characters alone, and mark characters as such, so that the vast majority only show up in words. More useful, I think...

@Byzanti - I am interested for pedagogical reasons. I want to see if the order of study makes a difference, and so far I think it does.

@Byzanti
How did you add the sentence?
Why is there a "show mnemonic" button? I don't have one..

@Phoboss: the mnemonic feature is only available to users that are taking part in the alpha test. Ask the makers to add you if you are interested.