[Course Forum] Characters 1,001 - 1,500 in Mandarin Chinese by BenWhately

What issues did you have in mind?

FWIW, as I encounter definitions, I’ve tried to do definitions in main by this procedure/algorithm :

Primary Def:
[primary definition word](also: [alt def 1], [alt def 2]) The parenthesis notifies users alt. def 1 & alt. def 2 are both also valid in addition the the “main” definition.

For primary + alt 1 + alt 2, those will be the generalized terms

Manually add {[primary def]; alt def 1; alt def 2} to alt-defs list as separate terms (one per line).

In the visible alt-list, I’ll do [primary def]([synonym 1], [synonym 2], [synonym 3], etc.)
Then in invisible list (added with ‘_’ preface) I’ll add each of the synonyms including primary def individually (so they’re accepted as single answers), then add in variant spellings (UK vs. US English) and phrasing variations. <-- this is a lot of work but it works around test system limitations

I try to avoid bound form definitions and specify the intrinsic meaning of the hanzi. If I do include bound form definitions I try to preface the defs. with (bound form) or (b.f.), so readers/learners will know that’s not the meaning of the character by itself.

There’s lots of aspirational targets (like adding “mw for X” “m.w. for X” “measure word for X” as hidden answers for all measure words, but that’s an extraordinary number of variations when I add in alt. words.) Also grouping all words with multiple subdefs. with ‘(1)FooA(aAlpha, aBeta, aGamma)’, ‘(2)FooB(bAlpha, bGamma, bDelta)’, ‘(3)FooC(cAlpha, cGamma, cDelta)’, and hidden defs “_(1+)FooA”, “_(1+)aAlpha”, “_(1+)aBeta”, “_(1+)aGamma”, “_(2+)FooB”, “_(2+)bAlpha”… until all variations are in. This allows to tester to type any of the valid answers. For instance I always add in “to kill” + “kill” for a kill verb for example (but not for nouns.)

I’ve done the preceding with various test cases but it’s not uniform yet. I’ve tried to do it for ones that have words strewn too haphazardly in the alt-defs list.

Hi omnivore,

A few of the words appear very strangely in the review mode with single brackets etc attached to the words. I think this is related to spacing.
Also some are expressed with a different pattern which makes the review more difficult, e.g. 述 to {state, narrate, recount, relate, tell). Mixed bracket types here as well. A few words require the various alternative words to be entered in a precise order, 纳 for example.

Regards

Anthony

Hi omnivore,

An example screenshot for 阅 with the braces attached to the words in review. It seems the app does not expect to see braces in the word list. This is the first course I have seen that uses them.

We have scan❵ and ❴experience and stray commas in the review selection.

Thanks
Anthony

I updated the definitions. It should work okay now. Let me know if it’s still broken. I will need to do this for the rest of the characters in the other sets of 500 characters as well. Thanks.

Hi Omnivore,

It has definitely improved but there are still some strange ones. I just came across this in review.

Thanks

Anthony

Hi Ominvore,

I also noticed that 予, to bestow, doesn’t seem to accept “to bestow” as a correct answer. I assume it is looking for all the parentheses and other stuff.

Thanks
Anthony

Hi Omnivore

There seem to be two different entries for 折and they appear in the same tests making it random whether you get it right or not.

Thanks

Anthony

Hey!! This may not be the place but I can’t really find another way to contact you, this is just an idea. Do you think that in the future you could make a deck with non-HSK words? They’re in this list: http://hanzidb.org/character-list/by-frequency and I think there might be greedy people like me wanting to know it all outside of HSK once they started, and i’d really be thankful if there was such a thing!

Hi Omnivore

碎 Has an English meaning of to fragmentize. It should be to fragment.

Thanks

Anthony

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any news here for a while now( And I want to learn Chinese as well. Please advise me if I’m already learning it with a teacher (I’m talking about mandarin chinese). Would it be useful to learn it in Memrise as well? I know that they have a good Mandarin section, but I haven’t heard anything about the quality of Mandarin Chinese. If you can, someone tells me how good it is and if it’s worth it. Thanks in advance!