I have been using Skritter to study for the Kanji Kentei but have found that the Skritter dictionary is pretty hit-or-miss when it comes to knowing yojijukugo. For example, 悪口雑言 is recognized but I had to create an entry for 一牛鳴地; both appear on the lowest level of the Kanji Kentei.

Is there any solution besides simply praying while doing Quick Add and then creating my own definitions and readings one by one? Thank you very much.

The people who developed Skritter are Americans with a strong Chinese language background; hence, you should view Skritter as primarily a Chinese language resource with the added benefit of some Japanese compatibility.

There are actually many flaws with Japanese version.

http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=192319766

As a Japanese native, you will probably have a deeper knowledge of 四字熟語 than most of the posters here. I'm sure they would appreciate it if you would add your own definitions and readings. I for one only know a handful; children don't use 四字熟語.

Actually, I am not a Japanese native. I just did another "quick add" of yojijukugo, and just over half were known to the Skritter dictionary. I am glad that any are in there, but having to make my own entries for ten out of every fifty new words takes the "quick" out of "quick add".

Of course, I have a dictionary of yojijukugo, so I am able to input English versions of its definitions.

If the data you put in is well formatted, it should auto fill the fields. So for example if you have it like so:

[writing][tab][reading][tab][definition]

Per line, and just paste that into the list editor, all the fields should be filled in for you. See the list editor help popup when you're editing a list for more info.

I input the yojijukugo as a copy and paste from a single column in an Excel spreadsheet. As far as I can tell, I am doing this right. I have input over a thousand terms thus far with little difficulty, but yojijukugo are a problem.

For example, if I paste in a term like 道, Skritter will use its dictionary to automatically fill in that the reading is みちand the meaning is "road, path". There is no problem recognizing what I would call "dictionary words".

However, Skritter generally recognizes only about 50% of the yojijukugo I have input. For example, Skritter does not know 危言危行 or 感奮興起, but knows 眼光紙背 and 眼高手低. (try it) All of these proverbs are from the 5級 of the Kanji Kentei, which is the lowest level of the test to feature yojijukugo and tests the equivalent of a 6th grade reading level, so I am concerned about the issues I will have when adding more advanced yojijukugo. I would much rather spend my Skritter time writing characters instead of clicking up yojijukugo and then translating English definitions.

Could you send some example text that you're pasting into the list editor? It should all auto fill and go pretty fast, if it's formatted correctly.

Here it is:

家貧孝子
観感興起
官官接待
眼光紙背
眼高手低
顔常山舌
完全無欠
感奮興起
危急存亡
危言危行

These are all 5級 yojijukugo.

I feel that I am not conveying the problem properly. The issue is that the Skritter dictionary is lacking in definitions for yojijukugo. Like I said, the Skritter dictionary doesn't know 危言危行 or 感奮興起, but knows 眼光紙背 and 眼高手低.

I really do not think the issue is my formatting.

Oh I see, I misunderstood. I thought that Excel spreadsheet you had included definitions. If the text that you paste into the editor includes the definitions, they'll be auto parsed into them. That way, you can more easily and speedily enter in readings and definitions of words that aren't in the dictionary, but if you don't have a digital version of the definitions to go along with the words then there's no faster way to enter them. We've added all the free-to-use digital dictionaries we know of already. Do you know of a digital source we could use to add them, one that's allowed for commercial use? If so, either you or we could import them.

@ Tanizaki

You were quite clear in conveying the problem in your original message. However, the same issue still remains: the Japanese version of Skritter needs an upgrade.

BTW: I spent over an hour trying to learn 4 new yojijukugo (via a podcast) yesterday. It's hard. Not only that, but for many of them you need a large amount of Japanese AND Chinese contextual knowledge -- politics or literature or history -- in order for them to make any sense at all. Idioms are extremely difficult to translate.