Vocabulary ... idea.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused. Is the ChinesePod Dictionary section what you're using to do this search? At first you say "Its hard to find words that are part of phrases", and they you seem to be wanting no phrases but simple analysis at the character level. Which one do you want? If you want to define each character on its own, that's not the way that most of us here tackle it, so far. Whole words, phrases, and sentences seem to help us most, and that's what the Dictionary is giving, isn't it? Could you clarify a bit, where on the site are you doing this, and what exactly do you wish for?

Like I said, I'm taking Chinese classes. We have books with vocabulary lists as part of the curriculum. 1 through 44, exercises, a nice few pages of text that use the words afterward. Pretty standard. Lesson after lesson. I like that on Chinesepod you can create a vocabulary list and make them into digital flashcards and play a memory game with them. I figured why can't I use the fancy Chinesepod vocabulary list feature to study those that mundane 第八课 with the list of 1-44 characters that I have to memorize for class, for a grade. So, thats when I went ahead and just started looking up my textbook words on Chinesepod, one after another, and adding them to one vocabulary list. 1. 舞蹈 2. 训练 3. 遗憾 4. 怪 5. 顾 ect... It was pretty easy to find some of the words in a lesson. 1-3, for example, are easy to find. They've got two characters and wern't really part of bigger phrases. When I searched for 4 and 5, however, there were quite a few lessons that poped up as containing such-and-such character. Well, that makes sense, they're single characters. The same single Character can be in a lot of words, I get it. My point is that I would like to be able to search for "光" and find lessons that have 光什么什么... 什么光什么... I don't believe there is a single way to use this site's learning materials. I like the programming of the vocabulary list and want to incorporate a little bit of this particular efficient feature into my classroom material. I understand every person's needs are different. I am not just learning the language on my own, but using Chinesepod to supplement my course work. I imagine that there are other users out there who are similar to me. Students looking for more ways to practice, more ways to review, more ways to reinforce what we're being exposed to in other places.

crap, I need to read what I write before I start pressing enter. I meant I want to be able to search for "光" and find lessons containing 光 by itself, not 光什么什么 or 什么光. My English is getting wretched. I'm living in a house of Spaniards, in Beijing. Please forgive me this time.

OK, thanks for trying English :-) You still haven't confirmed that you're using the Dictionary feature, but I'm going to assume that's what you're doing. Have you considered the possibility that there does not exist a lesson where that character is treated as a word on its own? Also, some characters, though they might have a "meaning", do not exist on their own but must always combine with other characters to make a word. Your number 5 seems to be an example of that. Could that explain the results you're getting?

Ning, you can look up individual words or characters in the dictionary and there is a feature that allows you to add these to your vocab list. You do not have to go to a lesson to add words to your vocab list. Like Sue, I am still confused as to whether you are using the dictionary to do the search? This is the way to go. Does this help or are we still missing your point?

Dictionary search on home page. Find character and it will be listed even if there are no lessons containing this character. If there are lessons it will list them but you can add character direct from dictionary to vocab. Later in the vocab you can add tags. In this way create vocab lists from which you can study. I use it this way also. Im thinking this is what you are looking for and suspect you have been searching in the lesson search feature to find words in lessons and add them? Hope this is helpful. My apologies if I have missed your point.