Dear Skritter Team,

I know you all are very busy maintaining the site, but I'm just curious if you have any future plans to add advanced level vocab lists to your database. As an upper-intermediate/advanced Chinese learner, most of the textbook vocab lists you currently have (save for two or so) are too simple for me to gain anything from. I feel if you had advanced vocabulary lists to study from, I would be incentivized to subscribe to your service. (Ex: I'm currently studying from Chinese Odyssey Vol. 6, but your database only has volumes 1 and 2.)

I'll second the notion that really good vocab lists (especially those mirroring popular text-books) would be a big asset. By really good, I think I mean:

1. Really accurate. I get a sick feeling any time I find something wrong. With volunteers sharing their own lists, this may be tough.

2. Really closely tracking the text book. (i.e., I'm using one of the Mathews lists, and the definitions don't correspond all that closely to the book. Perhaps, two versions of the list would be better, one that is just the book, and one that includes expansive definitions). I'm not an IP lawyer, but I wonder how feasible this is. I have heard that Simon and Schuster has requested (and obtained) the removal of certain vocabulary lists based on the Pimsleur program. I'm not sure whether you'd want to approach some of the rights holders, or continue to operate in a grey area, arguing either fair use or that their copy-rights do not extend to the mere vocabulary lists.

3. Advanced. Not an issue for me (yet), and, I suspect, one of the least economically justified features, because there will always be many, many more beginner students than advanced students (though, perhaps, advanced students are thought leaders / early adopters, etc.). Out at the far edges of advanced study, the site might be able to add value by co-ordinating with the a handful of advanced users to build those lists on a co-operative basis.

Cheers,
David

And at very least perhaps the full HSK? I can see how that would be popular?

The full HSK? What parts are missing?

The full HSK is available, levels 1-4. Use the search function to fine 'em. :)

Ah, my bad. I was confused and thought 1-4 didn't include the advanced levels. Sorry guys.

Kind of surprised then, I would've expected more characters would be needed than 3000 for advanced level...

Just making sure people... Wikipedia says the current structure is 1-6 levels. This is all in the 1-4 on Skritter? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSK_test#Current_Structure

Cheers

Have you seen the queue page? As you run into unknown characters, words, and phrases, you can add them to your queue and study them as if they came out of a textbook.

James

The whole HSK thing is a bit of a mess at the moment. The only vocab lists available* are the four already on here, and it looks like these cover more vocab than any new ones will.

*I think. There might be some lower-level ones available for the new exams, but nothing substantial.

themagicpen knows the score on the HSK situation. Our HSK lists are great default lists--they order everything in those lists by both standard usage frequency and importance in dozens of textbooks, weighted by level of the textbook. So 经济 and 发展 aren't in the first section of HSK 1, for example.

The frequency-ordered character lists are good backups, but if you were going to do characters-only as your primary approach, I would recommend taking advantage of similar components and doing it Heisig- or Tuttle-style.

jpearse, we do have some pretty hard textbooks and vocab lists in the system. The later parts of HSK4, NPCR, Anything Goes, and 中国文化丛谈 should have a bunch of stuff you don't know yet, although there's a bunch of stuff you will already know in there, too. The custom lists is where a lot of the rarer stuff lives right now.

But if you're studying from Chinese Odyssey 6, then it would make most sense to add the words from that, either by putting the ones you don't know into your queue or by making a custom list out of all the vocabulary. We don't have that book and it probably doesn't make sense for us to add it, but easily could in the course of your studies.

I'm also inclined to think that once you get past a certain level, the value of general vocab lists falls off somewhat - by that point learners are likely to be doing their own thing, whether that is reading the classics, watching modern TV shows or doing a Masters in economics at Beida, and their vocabulary needs are going to be pretty diverse. It becomes an issue not so much of 'advanced' as of 'specialized'