On a fairly regular basis I have been running into definition prompts with characters that are new to me, where the practice page tells me something like "studied 4 days ago: overdue (737%)" even though I have never seen those characters before. This happened just now with the definition prompt for 滿, which came up saying I had studied it before; I had definitely studied its simplified version 满 before, but never 滿.

This seems to happen only with traditional characters and only with definition prompts. I suspect this is due to some confusion when I run into a new character and see its simplified definition prompt, which is somehow getting saved as if I also saw the traditional version.

James

I haven't noticed it with the same level of detail as you, jww, but I have noticed that new words have popped up for me in the past that Skritter thinks I've studied before. I am also studying both simplified and traditional characters.

For prompts where the answer is the same, there is only one copy of the item between the two styles. So unless there are multiple traditional variants with different definitions, definition prompts share an item and it picks which style to prompt you with at random each time. Same for reading and tone prompts.

The idea would be that you would usually much less trouble realizing that one character is the other form of the other than you would remembering what its definition, reading, or tone is. So you can save effort by avoiding mostly duplicated items. The writing prompt is then the only one that tracks the progress separately.

Does that make sense?

@nick I can't say it really does. There are lots of differences for some characters, and it happens a lot that I recognize the simplified but not the traditional, or sometimes vice versa. Randomly showing one or the other means that there's a fairly high chance of seeing only simplified four times in a row; if I get it right the first four times, I assume that gets scheduled way out in the future, which is not at all appropriate if I haven't even seen the traditional version yet.

I don't see how it's saving much effort; it seems more like cheating as it's moving things that I don't actually know into the "known" column and pushing out their review times beyond what they should be.

James

I noticed something strange when exporting last X studied:
方向 fang1xiang4 direction; orientation
向 xiang4 towards; to turn; to face
方 fang1 square; direction; side (Kangxi radical 70)

It does that for all words, but apparantly only splits up the words if I am also studying the individual characters.

I studied fang1xiang4 but not xiang4 or fang1 seperately recently. I think this behavior is different from before is it not?

I'm with jww... I'd prefer to have traditional and simplified characters treated as totally separate entities if that's possible. I don't mind the hassle of seeing double in the early learning phases.

I'm also with jww; I'd much prefer to have my trad variants treated as separate characters. Personally, I learn trads first, and then the simp is learned in relation to how it's different from the trad.

skritterjohan, you would get 向 and 方 when they were due if you missed them more often than 方向 itself. Skritter is probably focusing your efforts on 方向 right now and spacing 向 and 方 out.

Do you guys actually notice lower retention on the alternate forms of the definition/reading prompts?

I can make it so that instead of choosing randomly, it alternates forms each time you get it right, starting with the traditional form. Would that satisfy?

@nick I am not sure I got my point across properly. What I mean is that it seems when I export words it looks like this:

*ABC
A
B
C
*DE
D
E
*FG
F
G
*H
*I
*JKL
K
L
*MNO
N
P
*QR
Q
R

I put stars for things that I actually studied recently.

Thus when I try to export my last say 20 studied items because I have just added 4 or 5 words and I know I have practiced them within the last 20 items there is a good chance the list contains a bunch of word components so I should actually be exporting like 50 items to be able to find the last 20 studied items.

@nick It would satisfy me.

@nick as for lower retention, absolutely. The examples I mentioned were ones where I knew the simplified form cold and had no idea on the traditional one. Or are you talking about long-term? I don't know how we could possibly evaluate that.

As for alternating forms, that would be an improvement over the current situation.

James

@nick: I agree... altnernating trad/simp forms is the best and easiest way to handle it.

Okay, I've put that online.