I was just going over some of the example sentences with my Taiwanese girlfriend, and she told me that a lot of those Chinese sentences are kind of strange. So we're wondering where they're from?

Taiwan is strange too
http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=47805578&comments=37

They are from http://dict.cn/ even though i think that the ide come from suggestions from people using http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/node/115 (they are using dict.cn sentences) I think that http://tatoeba.org/chi/home are having better sentences but they are still full of errors as well. It is probably hard to get a good source of quality sentences. For words that have to me weird sentences, i add my own in the definition field instead. Most sentences are at least for me very useful.

@Neil that's uncalled for. you're a jerk and I hope the Skritter guys suspend your Forum priviledges

lol.

You know Bohan, calling something strange in English is no big deal. Even then, I suspect he was joking ;p.

I guess I overreacted, sorry

nciku's example sentences are very good. I have yet to find any odd sentences on their website.

My wife is Taiwanese and I took no offense at what Neil said.

I really did overreact. I'm sorry Neil

@pharchik Please take a look at the example sentence for 晚报, “我请他去给我晚报拿来.” Isn’t that odd?

http://kaiser.dreamhost.com/OT_stuff/bloom_offensensitivity.jpg

@jww1066 hahaha , oh god. It's true , I am a bit oversensitive sometimes. I was just thinking today that I don't understand Western(namely North American) mentality and social etiquite

@pts

Indeed that sentence makes no sense. Did you get that from nciku? I just did a search for it on nciku and nothing came up.

@Bohan where are you from?

@jww1066 Calilfornia, immigrated here when I was 2. Born in Iran

@pharchik
Try cramming 晚报 on the scratchpad. It’s the first (default) example sentence.

@ pharchik
Sorry, I made a big mistake. My head is not functioning and misread you first post. So forget about it.

我请他去给我晚报拿来.
I asked him to fetch me the evening paper.

Hmm, what's wrong with that sentence? It seems legit to me. What am I missing?

我请他去给我拿晚报来.

Bohan - no worries mate.

The English is sometimes a bit strange as well, but half the time its lack of context to set the tone and situation. That is probably also true for some of the Chinese sentences.

涨
现在的钢材涨价了
Now the steel comes high.

坚强
他意志坚强
He has indomitable will.

追逐
切勿追逐自己的帽子--人家会乐意为你追回来的嘛,何必去扫人家的兴

Is there a way to have varying levels of example sentences? I find some of them very helpful, but many are too abstract or difficult for my level to be helpful.

We just need more sentences from more sources so that there are more straightforward sentences in the system.