Have you ever found yourself wanting to mark a word or character for more intensive study later? The analogue equivalent would be something like earmarking a flashcard or highlighting a row in a textbook list.
For more than 6 months we’ve had a feature that we call “Starred Words” which enables you to do this very earmarking on Skritter. Our recent vocabulary overhaul has made accessing the starred words that much easier and convenient.
Starring words and then practicing them later is easy, if not very discoverable. If you are practicing a list on the Study Page and think to yourself “wow, I never get that character right,” or, if you are like me, “geez, I always confuse 放, 方, and 房!” then the Starred Words can be a real help.
All you have to do is click on the star icon to the right of the practice window. Skritter will automatically save that character a special Starred Words list. In my case, I tagged a few character with similar pinyin (because that’s apparently my brain’s weak spot) over the course of several weeks.
After you’ve starred the words, practicing them is easy. Just go to your My Words page, and on the left side, click on the “Starred Words” link. You should arrive at a page with a green “Study Starred Words” button in the upper right hand corner, just click that and you’ll be able to drill your most troublesome characters.
Personally, I find it helpful to keep my Starred Word lists small so that I can really focus on a few problem items, but you can obviously use it however you feel works best to your advantage!