Skritter seems simple but packs a lot in (we’ve kept the interface simple on purpose so you can focus on learning characters, not learning how to use Skritter!) Michelle, Cacairl, and I gave a demo of Skritter the other day and it took quite a long time; I wanted to share the reasons why with our blog readers in hopes that you might learn something new and maybe make your studying a bit more efficient. So, without further ado, here are the top 38 reasons to use Skritter to study Chinese and Japanese characters:
1. Learn Characters Faster. Learning characters means spending time. Skritter saves a lot of time with its spaced repetition system recording which characters you know, letting you review characters in the most efficient way possible to get them into your long-term memory (and keep them there!)
2. Character Breakdowns. Most Chinese and Japanese characters are collections of components (called radicals) arranged into different patterns. Skritter displays the components of the characters you are studying as you study. Attaching meaning to the various parts makes remembering characters much easier.
3. Stroke-by-Stroke Feedback. Characters written incorrectly mean wasted time and effort (and sometimes confusion when a character you’ve drawn in error means something completely different). Skritter lets you know right away if you miss a stroke, miss a hook, write a stroke out-of-order, get a stroke backwards, or make several other kinds of mistakes. Learning Chinese or Japanese characters without Skritter means you’ll very likely learn some of them incorrectly.
4. Animated Character Writings. Forget how to write a character? Come across a new character you don’t know how to write? Hold down ‘s’ (or the ‘Show’ button) and get the writing animated in proper stroke order.
5. Use Your Visual Memory. Skritter ‘snaps’ characters you write into place, over time correcting the look and proportions of your characters. What you see and remember is the correct way to write (if you want to override this, you can use the ‘Write Raw Squigs’ option to see your writing ‘raw’ before it snaps-in).
6. Write With Anything. You can write characters with any peripheral: your mouse, touchscreen, a trackball, etc; the recognition works well with any input device. However, to best imitate the action of writing a character, we recommend purchasing a relatively inexpensive Wacom writing tablet. Wacom Bamboo Tablet prices range from about $55 to $160 but allow you to write more quickly, accurately, and ergonomically, and are top-notch. Read more about them at our Wacom store.
7. Definition Practice. Remembering how to write the characters isn’t too useful without knowing what they mean. Skritter, by default, also prompts you to study character definitions.
8. Your Language. Not an English native speaker? Switch from character and word definitions in English to definitions in your own language (we’ve got a few in there now and more on the way).
9. Audio Clips. When writing out characters with Skritter you get sound clips of native speakers saying the character or phrase you’ve just studied; a 2-for-1 deal giving you added listening practice without taking any more time (available for most Chinese characters, words, and some phrases but not yet available in Japanese unfortunately!)
10. Tone Practice. Chinese characters have four tones plus a neutral tone and often change depending on what word they are in. Skritter helps you to get them straight so you don’t confuse a horse (马 pronounced “ma” in the third, falling then rising tone) with your mom (妈 also pronounced “ma” but in the first, steady tone).
11. Reading Practice. Skritter helps you learn to read words so you can pronounce them correctly and so you can input them electronically (e.g. into a computer or mobile phone with tone-based input methods).
12. Tone Coloring. Visual colour associations for learning characters help some people to remember tones more quickly and accurately. We’ve enabled the most popular tone coloring used by textbooks as an option in Skritter for those who want an additional visual reminder to help them learn character tones more quickly.
13. Kanji Character Progress Tracking. Skritter tracks learning progress on each character (which is what you want to keep track of, how many kanji you can write) even while only prompting for kanji in the context of words (which is what’s useful).
14. Mnemonics. Associating characters with phrases or stories can help you to recall them; for example, 好: “A woman and a child are good.” (the left side of this character is the radical for woman: 女 and the right side is the radical for child: 子). Users-contributed mnemonics (some simple, some quirky) are available for lots of characters and words to help you speed your learning.
15. Your Textbook. Character lists for many of the most popular Chinese and Japanese textbooks are already in Skritter meaning that you can just select your textbook and go. If your favourite textbook’s not in our system, drop us a line and we’ll see what we can do about getting it added in.
16. HSK and JPLT Lists. Using Skritter to study for the Chinese Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) proficiency test or the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT)? Skritter’s got the vocabulary lists for you to start filling in the gaps in your character knowledge so you can ace the exam.
17. Topic Lists a’Plenty. Want to focus on learning your colours, proverbs, or swear words? Skritter users have created and shared tons of lists on lots of topics that you can start studying from right away. You can also easily create your own and share it (or keep it to yourself if you’d rather).
18. Progress Tracking. See your progress charted on our progress page and add to your motivation. Skritter tells you how many characters you know and graphs it over time giving you encouragement (and a reliable way to understand your level of knowledge).
19. Progress Goals and Publication. Making public commitments can encourage you to study more so we built Twitter-integration into Skritter; tell Skritter your character-learning goals and it will automatically tweet your progress. If you would rather not share your progress reports, you can set Skritter up to email them to you instead.
20. Cram Lists. Test coming up? Going to the Japanese embassy and want to review the appropriate vocabulary before you go? With Skritter you can pick any list or any section of any list and study it exclusively (cram it). Cramming is useful when you want to focus on specific vocabulary for whatever reason.
21. Starred Items. Some characters look a lot like other characters. Starring characters lets you easily tag characters you want to mark for concentrated studies.
22. Handwriting Shortcuts. Advanced learners (and native speakers) throw in shortcuts to make writing faster. Skritter accepts several of the most common ones to make learning characters quicker (see the FAQ’s Practicing Section for details).
23. Custom Definitions. Skritter’s character definitions include the most common usages and are geared towards learning (keeping them short and and focused) but sometimes you just want to study the definition from your textbook or you want to add in a non-standard definition (maybe a regional variation). Custom character definitions give you the power to decide.
24. Heisig Keywords. James Heisig created an innovative method for learning Japanese and later Chinese characters that orders learning by radicals. Skritter’s language options let users of his books study using the Heisig keywords.
25. Add to Skritter Bookmarklet. At the bottom of the Skritter vocabulary page is a tool called a bookmarklet that lets you easily add characters and words you find on the web into Skritter. Just drag the link to your bookmark toolbar and from then on you can highlight a character and click the “Add to Skritter” bookmark to add it to what you are studying in Skritter.
26. Fine Tuning. Skritter automatically decides if you wrote a character incorrectly (and has a checkmark button to override the decision) but some people like more control. For them, we built the fine tuning. Just select “Use grading buttons” in the options menu and you can score yourself on a 1-4 basis; this is particularly useful for advanced students who are new to Skritter who want to mark a lot of characters as “4” (too easy).
27. Definition Lookup. Want to get a more complete definition? Some example sentences? The magnifying glass icon lets you look up a character or word in several of the most popular dictionaries on the web.
28. Add Characters with Words. When you add a multi-character word, Skritter can automatically add in the individual characters for study. Adding the characters helps you break down the meaning into components making it easier to learn new characters in the future. If you choose not to use this option (called “Also Add Characters When Adding Words”), you can click the magnifying glass and add the individual characters manually by hitting the green plus sign next to them.
29. Learn At Your Speed. Skritter adds new characters from the lists you are studying at a rate that makes sense for most people. It targets a 95% retention rate (that is, it adjusts its parameters individually for each user so that 95% of words being studied can be recalled correctly at any time). Some people, though, want to learn more characters and aren’t as concerned if they get a lower retention rate and others don’t want to forget even one character. Skritter lets you change your target retention and how often it adds new characters to the study mix.
30. ChinesePod Integration. ChinesePod has tons and tons of podcasts in its archives and comes up with several interesting new ones every week. Skritter lets ChinesePod users study the characters and words from their ChinesePod lessons with a few clicks.
31. Simplified, Traditional, and Kanji. Is simplified Chinese too simple for you? Learned all the Japanese Kanji in common use and want to move on to Chinese? Skritter lets you study Japanese characters, Traditional Chinese characters and Simplified Chinese characters at no extra charge. It’s a 3-for-1 deal!
32. Export Your Character Data. Want to use Skritter with another flashcard system like Pleco? Want to export all the characters and words you are studying for some super-cool analytical research? Skritter lets you with just a few clicks.
33. Pesky Character – Delete It. Added a character you thought would be cool to learn because it has 40 strokes and now regret it? On the practice page click the magnifying glass and then the delete button to easily remove something from your studies.
34. Look it Up and Add it In with MDGB. When you use MDBG to translate or look-up words, click the “S” icon next to any word or character to quickly add it to Skritter to study. Neat!
35. Custom Size and Placement. Prefer to write in a smaller area? Southpaw? You can adjust the size (large or small) and placement (left or right) of the writing area in the options menu to suit your needs.
36. Bilingual Blogging. We’ve just started this in Chinese but the idea is to have blog posts about learning Chinese written in Chinese with an English version and a Skritter list of all the Chinese vocabulary used in the post. You can then study the vocabulary in Skritter, read the blog post in Chinese, and see if you understood correctly by reading the English version. We’ve done a few of these thus far – let us know if you like the idea.
37. Support. Skritter users have given piles of ideas to us and we are committed to helping them (and you!) with good support. If we don’t live up to your standards, please let George and I (george@skritter.com, doug@skritter.com) know right away and we’ll do what we can to make it up to you!
38. Forum. The community of people on the Skritter Forum are active, helpful and encouraging. Everybody there is taking the difficult language learning journey and more than happy to give advice, answer questions, and provide encouragement (occasionally through user-driven learning contests based on the Twitter integration functions).
I’m sure I’ve forgotten a reason or two – feel free to comment below!