Was wondering if it would be possible to add a feature that first only gave the pronunciation, and then asked to write the word, like many instructors do in class- this could also hone listening skills.

+1

:o)

Absolutely genious. I second this! We'd need the word to be presented in some sort of context however. Perhaps first the word, then the word used in an example sentence, and then the word again, or something along those lines. Otherwise it would be difficult, if not impossible, to tell which word/character to write. I realize this will be challenging to implement, but I think it would make an awesome and very helpful feature.

This idea has immense appeal to me and I am quite sure that many users could benefit and appreciate an implementation of this.

This came up recently - I can't find the forum thread at the moment. The problem is exactly what Supermoan mentions (awesome username, by the way): since Chinese has so many homophones, how will you know which character to write? It would make more sense in the context of a limited list of vocab, like a cram list, or if you have audio for a whole phrase.

Just considering "shi" can make your hair fall out:

http://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/stonelion.php

James

You can already put your own example sentences in (with the word itself underscored out). If you hide the pinyin too, you can translate the word in context. This will make you think of both what the pronunciation is, and how to write it.

The suggestion here is that you'd just hear it, and look at an example sentence. Two things. Firstly, I wouldn't want to hear an out of context word. It would have to be read out in a sentence. Technically this is difficult - Chinesepod sentences are limited, lots of vocab it doesn't have. You could of course, hear the word and read the sentence, but what extra benefit is there? All it is doing is removing the step where you have to figure out how to say it in Chinese, and it certainly doesn't practice your listening.

You'd also really want example sentences to be ones your familiar with - or if automatic ones at least graded (to an easy level) and that take into account whether you know vocab or not. Otherwise you'd be spending too much time figuring them out. It would be slow.

So, I'd suggest it would have to be hearing the word (and then there's still limited word sound clips), and reading an example sentence? But does it really add more than example sentence/hidden pinyin as well currently can have? I'd say it's less. You're just focusing on writing the characters, you don't have to recall the word. That'll be to your detriment. And for what real world benefit?

Also, you can use Anki for this if you have the audio for a specific word/phrase list you need to practice (like for a dictation test). You can have it play the audio as the question and show characters as the answer.

James

This would be very useful if we could pull it off, but as pointed out above, there are a few big problems to solve first. We might try to tackle it at a future point when we're more caught up on bugs, usability issues, and mobile access.