I feel that there is no really good way for practicing definitions at the moment. The self review doesn't really cut it, since its not really an exercise, but more of an self grading system, and to grade yourself can be pretty hard sometimes.

How about a 填空 (fill in the blanks) exercise? You would get a Chinese example sentence with a blank in it, just like how the example sentences usually look, like 你__然敢做出这种事来。(This example is for single characters)

Now, instead of tones or ratings at the 12345 buttons, you would get random characters to chose from. If you want to make it even harder for the single character version, you could have characters with the same pronunciation, like: 1.静 2.净 3.镜 4.竟 5.敬

Obviously, the correct answer is 4.

Of course, this would work with words too, like: 我____喜欢这种天气

1.中国 2，绿色 3.医生 4. 无聊 5.非常

What you would need to implement this is:
Random words (we already got them)
Random example sentences (we already got them)

The great thing about this way of studying is that you don't just learn what the word means, but you also understand the meaning of the whole sentence, and most importantly: understand how the word can be used.

Also, since we have so many example sentences, and hopefully we will be able to add new ones ourselves soon, you probably will learn new ways to use the word and see new sentences all the time.

One complication with this method would be that sometimes 2 answers could be correct. Not so much with the one character version, but in the "word" version. Like the example sentence above. Most people would argue that 5. 非常 is obviously the best answer, but 3.医生 is not wrong. Luckily, with so many users that would be willing to help, and the great feedback system, we could probably sort those sentences out in a very short time.

What do you think guys(and girls^^)?

I just thought of a possible way to solve the multiple correct answer problem, but it would take some work though, so maybe its not viable. If we could add sentence translations. Like you would get the example sentence with the empty space
我____喜欢这种天气 and under it you would get the translation of the sentence: "I really like this kind of weather". This way, there can only be one correct answer.

And while we are on this subject, another good way to practice meanings would be the "draw a line" exercise, although this would probably take a lot of programming, so it's just wishful thinking of something that you might add some day in the future.
This is for 2 character words:
A------B--------C
你-----菜-----Banana
饭-----蕉-----Food dishes
效-----好-----Translation
翻-----果-----Effect
香-----译-----Hello


You break down the words into 2 characters, then you have to draw a line from A to B forming the word, then from B to C showing the meaning. Very easy, very effective.

I think a fill-in-the-blanks approach would certainly be more helpful than recalling ambiguous definitions without consideration for how the words are used. I personally think definitions are unhelpful and would like them to be replaced by "usages" as a category for revision.

I am not sure what the best way to do it is, but perhaps you'd get a sentence pair like:

我__是李刚!
> My dad is Li Gang!

And you'd have to draw in the missing character 爸 to make a sentence which could be used in the same situation as the English.

That is just a basic example, but it would have benefits later on when you need to discriminate between usage patterns of words that are conceptually quite similar. (Learning definitions certainly won't help you do that.)

The same approach could also be used to teach collocations or other regularly occurring word patterns. For example,

妈妈给我__ ____.
> Mum, tell me a story!

And you'd have to write 讲 and 故事, or

对不起，我不能____你的___
> Sorry, I can't meet your request...

and you'd have to draw 满足 and 要求.

James

Yeah, that would work too.

At least one thing is for sure. We need a way to actually practice character definitions. I mean there are a bunch of characters that I can both read and write, but don't know how to use, or even exactly what they mean. I hope the skritter team can implement something on a relatively short notice.

Sounds like it would be a nightmare to implement. You'd need a massive increase in both the quality and number of example sentences, notably including a ton of simpler sentences - since you'd need to use sentences that use characters and words the student already knows. Then you'd need Skritter to intelligently choose which words or characters would be reasonable wrong multiple choice answers. My guess is that something like this is perhaps conceivable in a couple years if and when there are enough resources behind Skritter to generate this content and write the algorithms that can make those decisions (which would probably depend on a database that would have to be put together that quantified and compared usages, sounds, character elements, etc., of every character and word that can be studied in Skritter...).

In the meantime (which very possibly means "forever"), you're probably best off setting up your own equivalent study materials in Anki or using prepared materials or the expertise of a teacher if you want to study this way. You could also set up custom definitions with example sentences built in, if that's more your style, but it would be a lot of work to do it for every item you study, of course.

edit (Woohoo!) - Not that I don't think it's a cool idea or that it would be a terrific way to study, I just feel like it would require a lot of work to do it even halfway right.

The ChinesePod (www.chinesepod.com) lesson test has features such as these. I think Skritter and ChinesePod together are a great combination.

I dont see how it would be all that difficult, not when we can work together. When we will be able to start adding and editing example sentences, we will be able to get a ton of usable material.

Then we could put it in an alpha testing phase, where we users could help by sending feedback, translating sentences etc. Some sort of grading system, kind of the ones we have for the mnemonics, where users can grade how well the example sentences works etc would be great way to sort the usable sentences from the bad ones.

It could be a work under progress that alpha testers could volunteer to help out with.

We wouldn't need any advance algorithms just starting out, since there's only one correct answer, and any other random words could be used as a choice word.

And then if you get an example sentence question where multiple choices could be correct (with translations, this is not very likely to happen), we could have some kind of "dont use this word in the future" feedback option to report it.

In a few months, we could have a pretty well working system.

Then of course, there is the even simpler, but still very effective way that James suggested: No choices, just the empty spaces and the translation. Have the choice of adding pinyin (to sort out possible multiple correct answer situations), and you cant go wrong.

DaXia, don't underestimate the difficulty of implementing what you suggest. There are several hard parts. I can see some clever ways around some of them, but it's still a huge project.

I don't like the definition practice mode very much either, so I'll be interesting in improving it with a more active mode, possibly like what you describe. As FatDragon said, having more, better, and simpler example sentences will be critical to doing anything like this. So I'm inclined to wait until that system is rebuilt to allow user contributions to sentences. When we get a critical mass of good sentences, we can think about trying fill-in-the-blank or other modes of definition practice using them.