Hi!
It would be great if, in addition to writing, tones, pinyin and definition, we could have measure word practice for the nouns. Is it an upcoming feature?
Schnabelhund

Hmm, that's an intriguing and pretty great idea. I have a nagging feeling it's not as simple as all that, but I like the idea in the absence of a good reason to like it.

Very interesting idea!

I think one problem is that every noun does not have one specific measure word. Take the word dog for instance, it has different measure words depending on the size of the dog. There is also the issue of 个. In some cases, using 个 instead of the "proper" measure word is perfectly acceptable. Yet there are other cases where it is never used. To complicate things further there is probably a measure word difference between Taiwan, Beijing, other parts of China, and Mandarin spoken elsewhere.

Seems like a bit too much for them to sort through. If there are a few particular measure word/noun combos you want to study I'd just add them to a custom list.

I think this did come up before, and yes it would be really cool. To be honest though, you could easily create a list to achieve this. Also, it would have to include all the different measure words that can be applied to one noun, which is often quite a lot.

How would you guys recommend going about studying measure words?

I find the suggestions at

http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm

very helpful when I study with Anki. It seems like, since a given noun might have multiple legal measure words, this runs into the problem with sets (see rule 9). So maybe instead of trying to associate each noun with a set of measure words, it would be better to study several short phrases for each noun, each one using a different measure word. Then you could study the sentences using cloze deletions, omitting only the measure word; you would have to supply the appropriate measure word in each case.

Other ideas?

James

Yeah I agree with James, that's what I was trying to get at really. Better to study them as phrases so you understand what each measure word is for. It's not measure word -> noun."一盒巧克力" vs "一块巧克力" for example.

It's on the list, way down there. We aren't currently up to the task of identifying which measure words go with which nouns, so for the foreseeable future, you can add them to your mnemonics or custom definitions.

I had a tutor once who just said “个” every time I asked him for a measure word for a different noun. Finally I said something like "Hey, can you help me out here? I'm trying to learn what measure words can be used with different nouns!" He said "It doesn't matter, just use "个" for everything, it makes no difference.

I was not so pleased. And I'm still a bit confused on measure word usage..

:(

Schnabelhund, there is a nice book about measure words: Über die Zählwörter im Chinesischen (I assume, you are German). It contains 143 measure words with good explanations and examples how to use them. I was thinking about the same some time ago. One problem is, that the definition for a measure word is pretty long and often they are commonly used characters. In order to have them incorporated into Skritter, it might be necessary to have a second definition as "measure word definition". I started to build up a list in Anki, but I gave up (might be due to Skritter addiction).
One other method would be, to use a post-it, write down the measure word with a few examples and glue it at a place, where you often see it, e.g. at the fridge, your bathroom mirror, close to your computer, etc. and then try for 2 or 3 days, to actively use this measure word. Then post the next one there, after you have 5 or 6 over there, take off the first one, as you might already be familiar with it.
The problem with Skritter also is, that you passively learn the measure word, but in daily conversation, you fall back to the behavior to use 个 again - that's at least, what happened to me.

@joshwhitson13:
"I think one problem is that every noun does not have one specific measure word."

Yes, but it is also true for definitions and tones. Having multiple possible answers would be perfectly fine with me.

@nick:
Even if it's way down on the list, I'm glad to learn it's on it :)

@Roland:
Well, at least I've been living in Germany for over 10 years :)
But now I live in Taiwan. I'll look for ways to get German books here. Where can you get them in China?

Schnabelhund, I've seen it in Shanghai in the Foreign Language Bookstore in Fuzhou Lu. But you can find it also here: http://www.studychineseculture.com/book.asp?id=2175 as well as at Amazon. I'm sure, you can find it in Taiwan also.

Re this topic; I received the following link from a friend. It is one the more detailed lists of measure words i have seen. Maybe it can be useful.

http://digchinese.com/en/measure-words

@joshwhitson13
Sorry to go a little bit of topic here, but could you (or someone else) elaborate on the four different kinds of dog that need different measure words?

I only knew of 个 and 只 and figured the difference was just that 只 was the more specific one. I tried to look it up just now.
On mdbg they also list 条 as possibility. So you use 条 with longer (bigger) dogs? What are the other two measureing words (or does 个 count)?

I'm quite curious. :)

条 is for long things. So maybe sausage dogs?

LMAO

I always thought 条 was the most common measure word for most dogs. And rivers. And dragons. As these things clearly belong in one category.