Hello! questions about SKRITTER! :P

Hello! Have you been progressing much? how long have you been playing skritter and why does skritter matter to you? here are some questions i would think are appropriate to answer. its sort of like that poll thing and i just wanna see what people think and i want to compare and size different answers to each other. any way. please reply because i think its a good way to get to know each other.

Bellsiewolf

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@Bellsiewolf
Great questions! Although I’m part of the Skritter team now, I first became a user in 2011. Back then Skritter was the most efficient way for me to learn LOTS of characters, and fast. I remember spending around an hour/ day studying lots of custom lists I’d created. I saw very quick results and the hard work paid off in both my writing and reading abilities.

The greatest satisfaction that came from using Skritter was handwriting a three hour exam in my Chinese Teaching Methodology class. Finishing an exam of that size in time, and being able to write short-answer and essay questions with very few errors was all thanks to my time spent on Skritter.

These days I’m not making much study progress on Skritter, but the lists I’m studying are super fun (just ask @josh how much he likes testing on my account)!

Looking forward to what others have to say and welcome to the forum!

-Jake

I’ve been using Skritter (Japanese) since 5-6 months, and I already learned more characters and words than I’d have ever imagined myself being capable of, so I’m convinced that Skritter is a great tool for effective studying and reviewing. I think Skritter has some advantages over paper based practice sheets, for example:

  • Whenever I have a few minutes to spare (lunch, coffee breaks, commuting, etc.), I can use that time to do something useful. I can’t have my dictionary and practice sheets with me all the time, but I can have my phone, so I can keep practising both reading and writing.

  • Since it’s not a one-time purchase that diminishes over time, my brain is reminded every now and then that I’m paying for being able to use it, and if I paid for it, I’d better keep using it as much as I can. This psychological trick seems to be effective for defeating my lazyness, and it enforces mee to keep a more or less regular schedule of steady learning.

Of course I still take a lot of grammar notes and example sentences on paper in order to practice real handwriting as well, but I think, the smartphone&tablet apps of Skritter are as close to real handwriting based practising as possible.

@SkritterJake what are your fun lists?

@Bellsiewolf I have been using Skritter since 2009, and it really helped me when I was studying for the old HSK advanced, particularly the essay part. It’s a great way to study in downtime like commuting or travelling. Although I’m not learning so many new words through it now as I’ve finished most of my lists, I’m still using it for reviews and think I’ll carry on doing that for some time.

  1. A bit.

  2. 5 months.

  3. The inability to write what I was capable of producing or understanding always felt like a gaping hole in my Japanese, something that brought me great shame and the feeling that I was a fraud masquerading under the veil of bilingualism. That shortcoming was like an old war wound, festering under my mantle, until finally I took it upon myself to tend the wound. Skritter matters because it is my salve, and thanks to it I can declare that my old untreated wound has not only healed but is now slowly beginning to fade. It won’t be too long before my body is without this malady and a new challenge may be ventured upon.

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@ximeng mostly custom Magic: The Gathering (万智牌) lists for my ever growing collection of Chinese cards. Here are a few cardboard highlights! Very fun vocab. And having the ability to actually read my cards has made for some interesting conversations with my opponents :wink:

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