This spiraled into a little rant. I mean nothing personal it’s more a criticism of the Skritter guys than your comment.
I think it is Common for the Skritter guys to think that they will have bugs Squashed and new features out way before they really will be. I remember way back that they decided to get rid of the old Skritter for 2.0 and the old one would be gone in a month. Well it’s been years and they still haven’t gotten all the features from 1.0 in the new 2.0. I not angry as they still have Legacy Skritter and I can use it during the times 2.0 falls short. But they tend to give unrealistic time frames when they do announce stuff. I would prefer if they just post what is a priority, what is not going to happen and what is in the future but not going to happen anytime soon. I feel letting users vote on the priorities for features is a mistake (giving them the first and final say). The reasons are the ones voting usually aren’t new users so they won’t be making a lot recommendations that new users might want. Users can only vote on things they understand. For example imagine a committee (made from engineers, lawyers and politicians) tasked with designing a new elevated rail system. When it comes to the parts and design, the room is mostly quite and listens to the engineers but when it comes to deciding the color, the room becomes a heated debate. Now imagine this with Skritter. It may be that lots of users want to have a feature like entering any kind word they see in Skritter. I know I have come across a lot foods, newspapers and peoples names recently and have been unable to use them. This is due to them not being included in Skritter’s database. However I’m certain that even though it seems like a small change it would be a massive undertaking in regards to database management. However imagine some unknown feature that is easier to implement and users don’t even know they want it until it arrives that the Skritter guys can see due to them having a close understanding of the code. I’m not saying users shouldn’t be listened to. Far from it. I’m saying users should be talked with on a suggestion by suggestion basis on the forum like they do. This way the Skritter guys can inform their users on their thoughts and explain what they plan to do and why. One of the greatest things about Skritter is that they do listen to their users. And one of the worst is they tend to give themselves unrealistic timelines, break their app (not just the beta) constantly, and try to implement new features before fixing old bugs. Now don’t get me wrong I like Skritter and I have my own wish list for it too. I might even start a new thread on it sometime now that I think about it. However it can be harsh having spent a long time writing out suggestions to have them rejected (like I’m doing on this thread (^_^メ) sorry). So I think I’ll go back to studying and post my suggestions another time. When that happens I’m sure 90% will get placed in the not going to happen or not in the near future. But if even only one of my small suggestions is implemented I will be extremely excited as it will mean I have personally helped to make lots of peoples lives better.
A side note on an item you mentioned in this comment that you may not be aware of.
There’s no reason you can’t practice or use words that are not yet in Skritter’s database. In addition to the main database, Skritter allows users to enter words. I do so myself multiple times weekly, constantly expanding their database as I encounter new words in the real world.
While this can be a problem if users are not thorough and responsible (I have infrequently encountered mis-spellings of the pinyin, lots of incorrect traditional forms, and sometimes non-English definitions,) it is mainly a huge asset for us users.
Some advice for those wishing to add words to Skritter’s database.
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Make sure you are knowledgeable enough about the word you want to enter before beginning the process. Check with Pleco first for the correct pinyin and especially for the correct traditional form of the characters before beginning.
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Don’t enter every definition Pleco offers. Just the most common one(s). Keep it simple for new learners. Remember when you encounter the word in your reviews, you can up-edit the definition to be as advanced as you like.
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Check that you have entered the correct pinyin and the correct tones for this compound of the characters. Remember tones and even pinyin can change within words in some cases. Double-check with Pleco before completing. (I don’t mean when third tones are pronounced as second tones in the first character of a compound; for this enter the first character as a third tone. I mean when the tone is actually completely different. Pleco will let you know.)
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Be very careful to enter the correct traditional form. For some reason Skritter offers simplified versions of characters in its menu of traditional forms. This is very frustrating for those of us learning traditional characters as clearly users of only simplified characters are not skilled enough to be careful here, and I wish Skritter would clean up its traditional form menus.
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If you make a mistake and upload the word anyway, just immediately notify Skritter and they (normally) fix it pretty quickly.
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Enjoy the words you actually want to learn!
Also, if you don’t already know: new words are entered when you create a new list of words or add to an existing custom list. Once you enter the word you want to study, Skritter will let you know if it exists in their database or not. If not, two options are there for you: add either a new word or a new sentence. Once you select “new word” the new word form will pop up (at the top of your list so if it is long you will have to scroll back up to find it) and you just fill in the blanks, then press submit.
I agree with the other posters on this thread. Personally I also have over 4000 characters now and I definitely don’t want a cursive-recognition system out of Skritter.
My comments however relate to the legacy app; I refuse to use the new app until it has finally incorporated all of the superior features of the existing app, something the developers have oddly neglected in preference for features that don’t exist in the legacy app.
I use the raw squig input method and with one exception am happy with its recognition and grading. I also often don’t write in the centre of the box as many times I am racing through characters and not writing carefully because my goal for that day is not handwriting perfection but speed of getting through the list. Skritter works well for that. After I have raced through the character, the raw squigs appear and show me that have have written the character too close to the top, or off to one side, or too sprawling or whatever. Then it’s up to me what to do, depending on my goal.
If the goal is speed and I am essentially right, I leave the correct marking and move on. If the goal is accuracy, or I feel like I have actually become more sloppy over time than I would like, I accept the squig’s judgement and erase what I’ve written and do it over and over until I have relearned its correct proportions and angles.
I much prefer this choice.
As for cursive characters, I practice that naturally when I correspond with friends. (They have happily agreed to pics of handwritten letters so that I will not lose my writing abilities. It has resulted in a charming correspondence and getting to know each other a little more deeply than social media allows.)
I don’t want an app that allows AI recognition of cursive. As others have mentioned, that is useful for writing applications but not for language learners. You want to ensure that you really know the form, contents, angles and proportions of characters in a learning app. Your cursive will be dreadful if your essential form is poor.
For the Skritter people: one peeve is the character 出 . For some reason the app is way too strict with the writing. I get it marked wrong repeatedly no matter how much I slow down, and I find only writing the second stroke slightly backwards gets the app to accept it as correct, when in fact that is not correct. Anyone else encounter this? Very annoying.
A cursive mode might not be useful for you, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be useful for other learners. To be honest, not having a cursive mode is one of the greatest limitations of the app, meaning that, for ME, trying to learn the things that I want to learn, having a cursive mode would make Skritter a lot more useful in a way that no other feature, or bundle of features, could ever do. And when I say cursive mode I am not talking primarily about character/stroke recognition and being marked correct, but about actually practicing what strokes should be connected and how they should be connected. When I write 我 using the handwriting input method on my phone I do it (efficiently?) more or less in one stroke, and the phone recognizes it, but it looks horrible. What I need is a way to practice a more proper way to write it (and other characters). But since I haven’t even reached 3000 characters so far, this is not a major issue yet.
Anyway, I do understand that most users are not interested in this feature, since it is necessary to both acquire a certain proficiency, and to have a particular kind of motivation/goal for it to be useful. Even if I, some day (perhaps next year), will (temporarily) cancel my Skritter subscription to focus on how to write rather than what to write, the money that I might have paid if Skritter had a cursive mode wouldn’t be enough to develop a this functionality anyway.
Thanks for the tip about the web app. I have been using my phone to copy stuff from google translate to the app and forgot that Legacy web had that ability.
Hi there.
You’re welcome, happy to help.
I’m curious at your mention of the web app however. Personally I don’t actually use the web app to create words and upgrade my definitions.
I do it straight from the mobile legacy app by going to lists, selecting custom lists, then create a new list, then entering words I encounter. (Or add to existing custom lists just by going to the section I want to edit and adding from there.)
If it turns out they’re not in the database, the options to add words or sentences are included in that notification.
And I copy and paste directly from Pleco. I don’t trust Google translate (although it is getting better.) I want a good dictionary definition. And I only enter the most common definition(s) for the sake of not overwhelming newer learners. I wait for the word to show up in review to go back to Pleco and put in all the detail and subtleties I need myself.
Is this ability to add words and create custom lists still available only in the mobile legacy app?
I’d love a handwriting learning app, frankly. I’m just not sure a language-learning app is the most appropriate host for this. It would be amazing if it could provide that function also, but I suspect it is technically difficult and would appeal to a much smaller market.
On a side note, I notice middle-aged friends and associates are slowly losing their ability to remember all the strokes in some characters because they use short-cut entry methods on their social media and word processing and rarely hand write anything anymore. Just like newer generations can’t really write English in cursive anymore. Students who still have to hand write exams in Chinese schools and universities seem to be more familiar with the actual form of the characters, but they gradually seem to lose the ability also after they graduate. My friends’s texts contain lots of mistakes and typos, often using the wrong radical etc. Anyone else noticing this?
I’ve watched both native Japanese instructors in Japan and native Chinese instructors in Taiwan stop to look up characters in class to make sure they have the right strokes or right character before writing them on the board (or sometimes midway through when they get stuck).
That said, I think mistakes in digital form can have another cause, namely that pinyin/zhuyin input is ambiguous and if you’re going fast you might assume you got the completion you wanted and not bother looking closely to make sure. I certainly find it frustrating not being able to reliably touch-type the way I would English (learning cangjie is on my list but there’s a lot on the list before it).