Individual character (生字) option for quizing, instead of words (生词)

Ye Kaiwen

秀才
It would be great if we could have the option to be quizzed on individual characters within a set of cards. For example, I have studied through the HSK-4 level test, but I find myself often not knowing the meanings of individual characters. Now, I know, that is a wonderful problem for you to program. At the same time, it forces us users to choose what character meanings we want to be working on at each level. Ideally, we would be working on one character meaning at a time.

Let me see if I can think of how to explain this.

Display: 洗 (洗澡)
Answer: 洗 xǐ: to wash; bathe
Radical: 水
Strokes: 9

Now to have that answer, the user, the first time around through the cards, would have to select one or more meanings. Usually the meanings chosen would be parsed out of existing dictionaries, based on how each dictionary separates the meanings. In the example above, the ABC dictionary was used. The meaning "to baptize" would not be relevant here.

Since 洗澡 is part of the flashcard set, the character 澡 would also be tested.

Display: 澡 (洗澡)
Answer: 澡 zǎo: bath
Radical: 水
Strokes: 16

The ability to select meanings to be used is important. For example, a flashcard set may be set up that includes:

Display: 洗 (洗先生)
Answer: 洗 xiǎn: surname
Radical: 水
Strokes: 9

I probably choose a poor example for what I would like to see, but most paper flashcard sets are set up like that.

A master database for characters may be set up for this purpose. Putting in the HSK tested-characters with their associated meanings would be a good base. Once it is created, it could be used by all Pleco users.
 
Last edited:

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
This is actually something on our to-do list anyway, at least the single-card generation part - that would be useful for stroke order too.
 

heiban

Member
I've been looking for this for a long time too. Please add a option to check for individual characters when two-three character words have been added. It helps to remember other words that use the same chars, but is hard to remember because you haven't learned the individual characters good enough.
 
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