Hi guys,

Did you ever think of adding a way to learn the correct measure words for nouns? It could be realized with a multiple choice answer.

I don't think that nouns who can have more than one mw (like the cup and bottle) are much of a problem. Both are simply correct.

I would really like to learn the mw on skritter.

Otherwise I really love skritter. I save a lot of time with it and I can remember the characters really well thanks to skritter.

Hi，
To learn measure words, I have added nouns with their appropriate measure words as custom words in my lists. For example, you can add "幅画" fu2hua4 as "paintings" (plural).
This may be an intermediate fix until, maybe one day, there is a more intelligent solution from Skritter matching nouns with their mw(s) automatically

re: "Both are simply correct"; are you sure about that? I wonder if changing the measure word does not change the meaning sometimes. For example, in English the words boat and ship are similar in meaning but convey different nuances. In Chinese they are both 船， but 船 can take various measure words. (一条船 / 一艘船 / 一只船 ）Do all of these mean exactly the same thing? Are they interchangeable?

I don't think whether it's interchangeable matters at all in the context of Skritter. Some characters can take two different tones, but there are of course rules that apply. Skritter simply accept any of the correct options. The same would apply to measure words.

Also, seconded the request for a measure word learning mode. It would be very useful. Even if not implemented as a separate learning mode, it would still be extremely useful if all nouns showed the corresponding MW on screen while learning.

I suppose ideally Skritter would not accept a tone that was not correct for the definition, even if the character can "take two different tones." For example:
看 first tone: to look after
看 fourth tone: to look at
If the prompt were for the first definition, and you are testing yourself on tones, then you should be marked wrong if you picked fourth tone, because it is not right for this meaning of the character.

Anyway, I suspect this would be too difficult to implement in practice, so I'm not holding my breath. I would like to be able to make custom lists for nouns with related measure words. For example:
一匹马
一辆车
一把雨伞

Maybe I could already do this with the existing features, just treating each of the above phrases as "words" and giving them custom definitions. (Maybe "one unit of horses"? )

Anyway, if my hunch is right that the choice of measure words alters the meaning of the noun then it does indeed matter from the learner's point of view. Can anybody help out here? Is 一只狗 the same as 一条狗? Are the measure words for boat and ship the same? Or does one convey the idea of something large?

About whether or not measure words change meanings/nuances:
Chinese girlfriend says they do sometimes.
In this case 一艘船 refers to a larger ship and both 一只船 and 一条船 to smaller boats. But she wasn't sure because, and i quote, "usually we don't care that much" :D

Thanks, Andy. Maybe the same in English; many people would use boat and ship interchangeably (not care that much), but you wouldn't hear a navy captain referring to his ship as a "boat." Well, maybe useful trivia for the HSK or something anyway.

podster, for words Skritter only accepts the correct tone. So 看见 only accepts fourth tone on 看, and 看守 only accepts first tone. But for the single character 看, it'll accept either tone, even if I'd argue that fourth tone is by far the most commonly occurring case, but both are correct and it's an ambiguous case.

I'd except the same to apply to measure words. On a given noun that can occur with multiple measure words, if it's just the word, it should accept any. But if you are more specific (a sentence, or MW+word) you'll need to pick the correct one.