Hi All, Maybe it's just the lists I'm using to study from (contemporary Chinese 1&2), but I can't figure out how to study complete words, not just individual characters. I sometimes study parts of words separately, or sometimes just one character of a 2 character word. Is there a way to study both characters together? Thanks for any help, I'm sure there is something obvious I'm missing here!

I just had a look at those two lists, and I think that it indeed the problem. I'm not familiar with those textbooks, but just from glancing through the lists it seems they only have single characters and no multiple-character words. Try adding from a different list or creating your own.

I agree with junglegirl, I think you will find it helpful to make your own lists. You might want to start with words that appear in the text you are reading, and throw in a few other things like words you already know how to say that use at least one of the characters, or words made up of two characters that appear elsewhere in other words on your list.

Okay, thanks for this!

"Rapid Literacy in Chinese" (RLC) has lots of words, but you have go through the new characters first and then words using the new characters. If you can't find a list here, you might also look around at Quizlet.com for a flashcard list that suits you or you can copy one and edit it. You can then export it and import it into Skritter.

If you just picked "Contemporary Chinese" to start with and it's not required that you use it, like for a class, you might want to look at "New Practical Chinese Reader" or "Integrated Chinese" which seem to be mostly words. They are among the most widely used textbooks.

Integrated Chinese has lots of words, some with four characters. I've found it great for learning words. Good luck!