Studying full words

[flautert]

Hi all,

I use memrise to gain vocabulary. I was studying two lists: 500 most common characters and Chinese words by spoken frequency. I completed the characters course and intend to focus on full words from now on.
I just find odd when some word is listed that seems to be perfectly explainable by its characters. For example: 这边, this side. Is it really a word, worth to have an entry in a dictionary, or simply one word after the other? I was wondering if it gained this status because it has no measure word... I am considering to put it on my ignore list, since it is so easy to guess from the characters. 
Another example: 还要, "also to want". This one may have a useful meaning, but this one seems weird.
Are those possible mistakes when forming the list, or genuine stand-alone words?
Thanks!

[roddy]

Where have the lists come from? 

 

I'd be happy with both of those as words in their own right. They're common enough it's worth learning to recognise them as a unit (you'll end up doing that anyway, over time). A parallel might be 'everywhere' and 'someone' in English.

[flautert]

Ok, I guess you are right. In the case of 这边, for instance, I will probably not be tempted to use a measure word in the middle.
But I am wondering, when is a group of characters considered a word? Is there a commission that decides this? In english a word does not have spaces in it, so it is simple.
Thanks!

 

The lists I use are from these Memrise courses:

https://www.memrise.com/course/1224/chinese-words-by-spoken-frequency-1-1000/

https://www.memrise.com/course/268/first-500-characters-in-mandarin-chinese/

[Lu]

1 hour ago, flautert said:

But I am wondering, when is a group of characters considered a word?

That question, together with 'what's a dialect and what a language', will keep many more generations of linguists busy. I don't think it's practical to spend too much time thinking about that (unless you are a linguist, in which case it's a great subject to think about). If you come across a word in a readymade list that you think is useless or wrong, delete it. If you simply find it too easy, I'd suggest you just mark it as easy.

 

For what it's worth, I'd consider 这边 a word and 还要 two words. But if I came across them in a vocab list, I'd just learn them.

[imron]

On 2017年10月31日 at 6:43 AM, flautert said:

I just find odd when some word is listed that seems to be perfectly explainable by its characters

These words are like coathanger in English. Perfectly explainable by their component parts.  Consider them as free words.

[roddy]

Are they only explainable when you know them? You can take a guess, but if you showed the word coathanger to a non-native speaker with A, B, C and D pictures of a an actual coathanger, a coathook,  a cloakroom attendant, and the loop on the inside of your coat's collar, and they'd just learned the word paperhanger...

[Lu]

To stretch the metaphor: they're free words, but you still have to put them in your shopping cart and take them home, they don't just appear.

 

Also I just learned the word paperhanger. I never even realised I didn't know the English word for that person.