Skritter Forum

Chinesepod

2012-05-17T05:51:53Z

quimby: I just signed up for a month of Chinesepod. I'm hoping to put more time into improving my abysmal listening comprehension. Naturally, I've already run into problems. Everything I try to download from the Chinesepod site comes up in Quicktime. What I really want is to get lessons on my itouch. I've checked my laptop defaults -- mp3s are set for itunes.

Anyone have experience with this? I'm finding the Chinesepod website a little bewildering so I'm back to the Skritter forum for advice. I assume there are a number of Chinesepod users here.

Thanks for any pointers.

癶 - dotted tent?

2012-05-16T23:16:31Z

atdlouis: In the radical list, 癶 is listed as having the meaning "dotted tent."

Um ... what's a dotted tent?

Single-Character Words in the Japanese iOS app

2012-05-16T17:38:05Z

weirdesky: I think there's a significant problem with the iOS app and single character words (especially as new words). When I open up the iOS app, it says I have something like 500 reviews or so, and then when I complete one or two words, it'll drop by about three to four hundred. I was curious about this, so I started reviewing in the web app to find out what was going on. Sure enough, it looks like I had about... well, I'm currently adding my 106th new word, of which a disproportionate number have been single-charactered. I've seen some from a good 5 lists back, that I've had completed for about two weeks now. I don't recall ever seeing a single character word appear as a new word in the entire time I've been using the mobile app, but my memory isn't really that good.
I'm not sure if this problem extends to single character words on review, but I'll notify you if I see them as reviews just fine.

死气沉沉 instead of 死氣沉沉 (Traditional list)

2012-05-16T14:32:43Z

fangshi: Hallo,

I noticed a mistake:
in one of my traditional vocabulary lists is the Chengyu 死氣沉沉 included, but Skritter shows it as 死气沉沉, which would be the simplified variation.

TOCFL Vocab List

2012-05-16T14:12:25Z

fangshi: Hey guys,

I would like to know if there is a list for the Taiwanese TOCFL Level 4 and/or 5. Its the Taiwanese eqivalent of the HSK.

I tried to find it, but I wasn't successful.
If you guys could help me, that would be really appriciated.
Otherwise any other ideas on how to prepare for the test, besides doing the mock test on their website?

Anglicized Names

2012-05-16T03:19:25Z

Dependable Skeleton: My wife and I are considering naming our son 雲申. However, I don't think that most native English speakers will pronounce Yunshen close enough to the correct pronunciation. The first syllable will probably rhyme with "fun".

Our ideal English spelling would not induce fear in a native English speaker and would be pronounced reasonably correctly on the first (unassisted) try.

My current favourite is Eunshen. My wife prefers Eunsen, but that's because Taiwanese always drop their h's.

Does anyone have any suggestions on anglicizing 雲申?

ios app features

2012-05-15T20:23:25Z

goobybear: I have a question on the ipad/iphone interface of the app that is coming out (hopefully soon!) From the video clip it looks like there is only the check button on the screen instead of the 5 buttons currently in the web version (back, erase, show, correct, next). I find these buttons to be useful.

Also the keyboard shortcut to 1, 2, 3, 4 is also very useful since the buttons don't appear on screen until you write the word correctly and oftentimes I want to grade myself without having to write the word on the application interface itself. (i.e. write it on paper so I can circle the words I got wrong during the session for later review.)

Since there is no keyboard in the ipad/iphone will the 1, 2, 3, 4 grading button be visible before writing the word? I think it is important to have this.

I envision an alternative usage model similar to the above when Skrittering becomes portable as follows:

I don't want to be staring at the screen when I'm walking and skrittering (for obvious safety reasons). I want to peek a the definition/pinyin then look up and write the word against side of my leg (while looking at where I'm going). I then look down at the screen, hit the show button, and then grade myself by hitting 1, 2, 3, 4. Then repeat process. I figure most of the heads up time will be thinking and scribbling the word against my leg, and pressing the buttons would be very quick.

I like to raise this issue before the app is released to request if this interface option can be included in the release. Something like back, erase, show, correct, next when the definition initially comes up. Once you hit the show button the 5 buttons become toggle, 1, 2, 3, 4 where hitting the toggle button will bring back the back, erase, show, correct, next, whereas hitting one of the 4 numbers will grade and bring you to the next word.

I'm interested in hearing what other people think about this.

Example sentences

2012-05-14T20:57:22Z

swimming: Example sentences are great. I would love to see more of them. Some of the current example sentences are a bit "esoteric", and it would be nice to have more representative sentences.

Being able to click on words that appear in example sentences is a very useful feature. There is a small bug in the parsing of sentences that contain special symbols. Clicking on a word may then display the next or previous word. See for example the only example sentence for 背着.

"Not due" items

2012-05-14T20:39:35Z

swimming: When I learn or review relatively short vocab list, such as a CPod list, I am very often requested to review items which are "not due (10%)". (In many cases these are items are reviewed a few seconds ago.) This happens even though the number of items to review is positive. I would rather wait longer for items that are due.

How much time each day do you study for?

2012-05-14T12:30:48Z

ChineseCatherine: I've been learning Chinese through ChinesePod, which is great, but wanted to really focus on characters for awhile so have just signed up for Skritter. I wondered if there was a recommended time that I should spend studying each day? What do other people do?

I couldn't find anything on the FAQs to answer this, and I tried to look at the forum but it's quite hard to find things, so do forgive me if this has been mentioned before.

audio error for 总是

2012-05-14T06:28:58Z

smhon: the sentence given is:

他总是称赞他的女儿

but the audio does not match

minor and esoteric timezone request

2012-05-14T00:47:08Z

blakomen: hey guys, when tracking progress / words studied and @ what time, do you guys use local times or UTC times? I ask since I travelled from NZ to USA recently and crossed the date line; so I imagine this is why skritter thinks I made 0 progress today but double my regular yesterday? :)

Words without definition in CPod vocabulary lists

2012-05-13T21:43:24Z

swimming: Quite often, the CPod vocabulary lists contain words that do not have a definition. In http://www.skritter.com/vocab/listsect?list=172835733&sect=0, for example, there are 4 such words. Is there a way to resolve this issue? (I usually add the definitions myself, but this is tedious.)

Sentences in Traditional

2012-05-13T17:19:27Z

Schnabelhund: Hi!
I'm studying both simplified and traditional characters. When a word pops up where there is no difference between the two, the example sentence is shown in simplified characters. Can I set the characters to traditional by default while studying both?

Chinese word extractor - free software

2012-05-13T04:20:59Z

atdlouis: I've been using a useful piece of software called "Chinese word extractor." It can be found here: http://www.zhtoolkit.com/apps/Chinese%20Word%20Extractor/

You can copy and paste Chinese text into the program. It will analyze the text using a common Chinese dictionary, and then give a list of all the words & chengyu that are in the text.

You can even create a list of words to ignore. I maintain this list with all of my Skritter words, so after the text is analyzed, it will only show me words I haven't learned yet.

I've been using this software to study short stories, as well as a textbook I'm working on now called Common Chinese Patterns 330. I really suggest you guys try it out - maybe copy and paste a news article into the text and see the words that come out. It's the most useful thing I use to study Chinese, after Skritter of course.

〆

2012-05-12T05:47:34Z

weirdesky: Although it's pretty easy to write, is there a chance you guys are going to support 〆 (pronounced しめ) in the future?

It's used to replace various kanji-kana pairs pronounced as しめ, like 閉め、占め、締め、and 絞め. The most common usage is in replacing the 締め in 締(め)切(り) to make it 〆切.

It's technically a kanji! Although a 国字 (kokuji, Japanese-made kanji) like 込,畑, or 働. It's got two strokes and is techinically under the 4th radical, 丿部.

Here's the links where I got the information (both in Japanese):

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%80%86
http://kakijun.main.jp/page/shime02200.html

About iOS App: Japanese Support

2012-05-11T05:06:42Z

Giraffe: Hey there, I'm a really huge fan on Skritter and the app looks amazing! I'm really looking forward to the Japanese support.

Seeing that I brought it up, I was just thinking about it the other day. This is a good time to ask, since the Chinese language part of the iOS app is nearly finished:

How long might it be before we see the Japanese support for the app? And, since I don't know anything about programming or anything like that, how does/will the process of developing Japanese support differ from development of the Chinese app? Will we be waiting for a long time, or is it simpler than I am thinking? Is it just building off the framework you worked on with the Chinese app?

Sorry if I seem weird or frustrated in my questions, but I'm not impatient! I'm just really curious and even more so excited, seeing how great the Chinese app works... which is a perfect way to describe it. It just works, no question!

Component tree

2012-05-10T17:44:57Z

范博涵: It would be quite useful if for a word like 热狗 it would decompose 热 as 扌+ 丸 + 灬 , in addition to mentioning that 执 means to hold something in your hand.
Instead of only listing the major components of a character a component tree could be visible, further decomposing the major components into their constituent parts. As such:

执 zhi2: grasp; hold in hand; execute (a plan)
|_ 扌 shou3: hand
|_ 丸 wan2: pill

灬 huo3: fire

This seems easy enough to do and would do away with the hassle of having to click on said major components to further decompose them.

What Stylus?

2012-05-10T12:01:55Z

bennyboyk: I'm looking to get a stylus in anticipation for the new iOS app.

I wanted to see what preferences other users had, particularly our Skirtter app beta testers.

I love my Wacom Bamboo pad, but the stylus seems pretty expensive when compared with other brands.

What are your thoughts?

Words from characters?

2012-05-10T02:37:32Z

weirdesky: It's sometimes really hard to tell single character words from characters (I'm in Japanese, so single character words aren't just characters). Is there a sure-fire way to do this? Is there something in the definition that tells you?

Also, if the single character is a word by itself, it is not included under the "Words containing _" section.

Cannot find good English translations for these phrases

2012-05-09T15:37:38Z

fangshi: Well actually good German translations would be even more welcome, since I am German, but I guess the majority of the Forum inhabitants is English speaking, so please make suggestions :D

暴起暴落

坎坎坷坷

起起伏伏

I don't think Japan likes China

2012-05-08T05:26:36Z

icecream: I work in the Japanese public school system and am required to use a textbook created by the government. Today we learned about greetings from all over the world. We heard short clips and watched videos by native speakers from an assortment of countries. In each clip a student would say a short message in their native tongue and then would translate the message for the viewers into English.

What I found most interesting was how two countries, Japan and China, were portrayed. For Japan the two students -- the Japanese clip was twice as long as the others -- who were chosen spoke in the Tokyo dialect and their English was close to native-level; for China the child who was chosen mumbled his Chinese and could barely speak English at all! I started laughing at how blatant it was.

I was wondering: does the reverse occur in China? Is there subtle or blatant government propaganda in textbooks as well?

誤

2012-05-07T17:02:05Z

fangshi: Hey everybody,

I just noticed that the character 誤 wu is missing the left and right vertical "hooks" of the two-time bend 11. stroke in Skritter. Is that a variation or a mistake? :S

"Still looking for one to add" message

2012-05-07T12:59:58Z

xiaobill: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xiaobill/7006205842/

I just started up Skitter again this week. Deleted all my words and start fresh with the 完全漢字２級リスト。 I'm going at a nice and steady pace, but I keep getting this "Still looking for one to add" message. Does this mean that my list is complete and it wants to add more?

will online subscribers be able to use iphone app ?

2012-05-06T17:01:43Z

Hi,
Will online subscribers be able to use Iphone app on same subscription?