Component Test Type

[adam.hamilton]

Hi,

I'm wondering if it would be possible to use the information from the components tab to make some sort of components test type.

I remember thinking while I used Heisig (I don't anymore, but I tried to 2 or 3 times), that the genius of his method was not only that he created a mnemonic system to memorize characters but also that his system forces the learner to think of characters in terms of components.

I think this is a really powerful method. I think this is why studying a radical list helps so much. The problem is, there are many components that aren't on the radical list.

So I'm wondering if there would be a way to have a test type that would effectively force the learner to think of characters in terms of components.

For example, what if you saw the pinyin and definition of the whole character, say for 福。

Then, there'd be boxes (just like in the fill-in-the-blank character test for words with more than one character) and one would enter 礻and 畐。

Now with the new handwriting upgrade, it would make it awesome, because users can now enter... well I don't even know what to call it - the component as is used inside other character instead of the character as it is written by itself? For example, I just checked, I can write 礻and don't have to write 示。

The test could just take the biggest components that make up the characters (so it wouldn't then break down 畐 into 一 口 田).

I think this feature would really force the learner to think of characters a components, instead of strokes, which really makes a big difference (at least I think it has for me).

I think it would be even more awesome if you could link this to a dictionary that talked about the etymology of the characters. I think I've seen before that you've tried to get Harbaugh's Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary to be Pleco-fied, but without success... I don't know if you are trying to get the dictionary OneEye is working on Pleco-fied, but if you could get that pleco-fied and then combine it with this flashcard test type, I think that would be awesome...

However, even if it can't be linked to an etymological dictionary, I still think it would be valuable thing to add as a way of forcing the learner to think of characters in terms of components instead of random strokes.

 

[mikelove]

This would be a very interesting test type, yes - mostly waiting for our data to improve, actually; right now we're not quite confident enough in our component breakdowns to start testing people on them. But once we feel like we have good reliable component breakdowns we'd certainly like to do something with them for character memorization - would be kind of a waste not to.

 

[adam.hamilton]

Oh, do you already have plans for this? Awesome!

It would also be cool if you could have a setting where, say when I added the character for 福，it would add flashcards automatically for all of the components that make up the component, if they hadn't been learned before (weren't already in my decks). So I'd press the button only once for 福, and it would also add 礻畐 as well as 一 口 田. That would be super cool.

As well as perhaps customizable component breakdowns, just in case some people don't care about etymology and decide that a certain component breakdown for a character works better for their memory than the one that is automatically generated.

 

[mikelove]

We've got a lot of sketches, nothing more concrete than that at the moment. Not so sure about learning components themselves since a lot of them are of very limited use (or can even be downright confusing) on their own - don't want to veer into Chineasy territory here.

For custom breakdowns I think I'd rather just let people add their own mnemonics - I can see the value in that but I don't know if somebody reviewing a character they haven't seen in 6 months will necessarily remember the exact thought process that led them to that particular combination of components.