This is a feature request that I would like to receive a little feedback from other users about. It may have also been mentioned before, but I haven't seen the request yet :P

I have been going through the Heisig list and also reviewing simple Chinese stories while making note of new hanzi that show up throughout. I know the goal of the Heisig approach is to power through the writing/meaning of as many individual hanzi and that this idea somewhat contradicts that goal.

It might be nice to have a feature that would suggest new words to add to the queue solely based on the individual hanzi already learned. For example, if I have studied both 学 and 校 it might suggest I add 学校. This would make it much easier to add vocabulary based on prior exposure without overwhelming the user with completely new material. In most situations it would also reinforce the usage and meaning of the learned hanzi.

I would also like to clarify that I'm not talking about it making suggestions based on partial matches, but rather words that contain only previously learned hanzi.

I realize that I could just setup a script that takes my Skritter export and isolates hanzi strings of length one then parses all of those combinations against a list of common words, but it would be much easier if Skritter handled it for me haha. I think it would also be a safe feature to try out because the users could physically check the suggestions to add rather than it being a completely automatic process.

In short, I believe this would allow people to intelligently add some new words that require minimal amount of work to actually learn while also reinforcing the usage/meaning of individual characters.

Any thoughts or comments about this?

I like your idea, as sometimes combinations do have a different meanings and might be used in different contexts while they are still the same hanzi.

Sounds like a good idea to me, too. When I want some additional challenge but am not up to adding new characters, I will browse through lists to find words using characters I already know. So a feature like this could be useful and time-saving for me.

I have thought much the same, going through Hesig, but perhaps the suggestion could be less specialised?

I think the Skritter guys were considering putting in a section of the page showing words that use the respective character. If this was dynamically generated, taking into account characters you've already added (as well as new ones), then this might work quite well.

So, say you already know 学 and 地，but don't know 监 or 检 it might offer a selection to add from like this:

学校 School (Characters Known)
学地 Campus (Characters Known)
校监 Principal (Character Unknown)
检校 Proof read (Character Unknown)

This would allow you to expand your vocab with characters already known and consolidate those characters. But it would also allow you to expand your Chinese (especially important when you've stopped going through character lists exclusively and might be in a bit of a rut).

I'm in a half mind whether words added and learnt should disappear from the character page and be replaced by new combinations. On one hand, seeing them with that character reinforces that it's actually that character (eg not 教 or 效 or something), but I think I'd come down on the side of continuous expanding your vocabulary by offering new words.

Just a thought!

I guess it would also be pretty easy to check a box on how strict its suggestions are. Like with Byzanti's example that still pushes the user to learn a few new things, but still keeps things relational.

I'm still thinking in an even more straight forward sense though. As in, I don't want to have to learn to write anything new, but add a couple words that help me work on things I just learned. Right now I can click on the YellowBridge link and it will give me a list of words with the hanzi up front and at the end. I have a list of a few words that I recognized the other characters in the group to add to the Skritter queue, but as I add more and more it'll just become more difficult to keep track of on my own.

I could activate the HSK1 list now, and a lot of these combinations would eventually show up from things I have learned on the Heisig list, but I think adding them sooner rather than later is more motivational. On top of that, if I spend the time to learn two hanzi it is more rewarding and a better indicator of how many Chinese words I know if shortly after I am directed to review these similar things comprised of them.

I've really noticed this when going through short stories in Chinese. I really know so many more words than Skritter gives me credit for just by building things up. I believe if people used it Skritter would see a nice jump in learned words with people who have already learned over 200 base hanzi.

This is a feature which has been discussed before and which I would find very useful. I currently do this manually using the queue and it is very, very helpful to learn how a character's meaning changes when it's used in compounds.

James

This is a really good idea, would help build vocab you currently don't know with characters you do:)

It does sound useful. Doing it the way Byzanti describes would be vastly easier than the way you describe, though, because we wouldn't have to fetch all the characters' items for all words until we found enough words whose characters you knew--we could statically order all the most common words containing each character once and just present the top four containing words each time.

So I'd think we'd rather start with that. The only-characters-you-know thing could perhaps be even better applied to whole sentences when we put example sentences there--those will need more work to generate anyway.

Love this idea! This would be amazing. :)

But I have a question, and it relates to the current "add words" feature that is under the "More info" section for the word you are currently studying:

When I add a word from this section (and perhaps when I add a word from a new list of suggested vocab to study) where does that vocabulary and character go? Does it enter a list that I can look at, or is it just out there somewhere? I'd really like to be able to add these words to a list for myself to keep track of, if at all possible.

I often want to add a character from a compound word, but I really want to keep track of what I've learned and when. I haven't been adding them specifically because of this question. Any suggestions?

Hey there!
I've created a web application that can do this for you. See

http://huygens.functor.nl/skritter/wordlist/

戴莉絲婷, the character is added just like it's in the queue, which currently doesn't show old entries, it's true. So it's tough to keep track of. We're planning on turning the queue into a custom list once Scott carries out his grand custom list enhancement crusade.

Until then, I guess I'd copy them and then add them to a custom list manually, if you must keep track of them.

Is this the first spam comment?

Naw, that wasn't the first. One of us three usually strike them down pretty quickly.