Skritter Forum

俱樂部的意思？

2012-02-04T02:17:31Z

董雅各: The ABC and CEDICT both say 俱樂部 (ju4le4bu4) is a loan word for club/group/organisation.

Does anyone know in which language or word it might be a loan word from?

Export Words format?

2012-02-03T18:34:58Z

Dennis: What format does Skritter use when exporting characters? It seems to be UTF-8, but I'm not sure. The purpose of the Export is to Import into MySQL.

Thanks

Dennis

I read a menu today .. small victories

2012-02-02T12:58:11Z

kaysik: On Monday I noticed a guy putting up a sign for a new Chinese dumpling place about a block away from my house. Yesterday I noticed they had a now open sign in the window. It's on my way home from work, so tonight I stopped by to try it out. Since I love dumping and pan fried pork buns, I've made sure to learn those characters and was able to order both in Chinese off the chinese side of the menu. Stunned the pants of the serving girl who was then was more than happy to listen to my terrible mandarin as I very badly explained why I was learning (and then half the staff came over to listen).

It's the first time I've really been able to read something actually useful in a real setting, and the first time I've had a conversation* without my wife there "helping". It's really hard not to be self concious about speaking because I know I suck, but every time I get up the balls to actually do it, its great.

Anyway just thought I'd share! Thanks heaps skritter for teaching me how to order pan friend pork minibuns, food of the gods!

a new study part for Skritter (idea/suggestion)

2012-02-02T04:07:12Z

Bohan: An idea suddenly popped into my mind for Skritter. Here it is :

English to Chinese definition study.

Currently, there's already a part called "definitions", but this is Chinese to English, which is great, but English to Chinese would be nice to have as well.

The only study part that gives English and asks for something else is writing practice. The problem with relying on writing practice to satisfy English to Chinese translation practice is adding every new item to writing practice isn't very practical because drawing out the characters is time consuming. I think writing practice should only be geared to practicing writing characters, and not for English to Chinese translation practice.

A good name for this area of study could be "translations". It can work the same way as the current "definitions" practice, except give the English instead of Chinese. It can also have the same "don't know, so-so, got it, easy" system, and show both pinyin and characters after being clicked.

I actually have a dictionary app on my itouch that has this exact feature, but the app doesn't have SRS. I was just using the app and I was surprised at how challenging it is, even though I don't think I would have felt challenged if the items that popped up were Chinese to English, instead of English to Chinese.

I really hope this is added to Skritter. I know there's Anki and pleco, but I'd love it if I could have everything in one bundle. I actually don't like Anki, so I'd probably have to go with pleco, which I'm not familiar with.

Chinese Breeze (series 1 and 2)

2012-02-01T18:36:12Z

thinkbuddha: Hi, folks,

Just a quick note to say that I've got a bundle of old Chinese Breeze readers (series 1 and 2, incomplete, but about 8 mini-books/CDs in all) that I'm wanting to get rid of to free up shelf space for... more Chinese books. If anybody (UK only, sorry!) wants them, I can stick them in the post free of charge. Some are scrawled in a little, most are decent enough to work with.

Get in touch below (students & the otherwise impoverished will be favoured, though I'll do this on a more or less first-come-first-served basis!) and I can sort out sending them out. I'm looking for a single good home for these books. I may chuck in another couple of Chinese-related things too. I need that shelf-space!

All the best,

Will

Remembering the Hanzi, Volume 2 out early!

2012-02-01T05:39:44Z

mykal: I just went out to the University of Hawaii Press site to see if there was any update regarding the second volumes of Heisig's Remembering the Hanzi, and I got a pleasant surprise. They've been released!

I tried buying both the Traditional and Simplified versions, but for some reason, the 'Add to Cart' button on the page for the Simplified version didn't work properly, and kept bringing up the Shopping Cart without having added the book.

Still, I'm happy that I didn't have to wait until March to buy the book.

Qs re 'Mother and Son' (Chinese Breeze)

2012-01-31T19:47:02Z

Zeppa: A bit off topic, but I see Skritter has a word list for the 500-word text Mother and Son in the Chinese Breeze series.

I have now read two books from the 300-word level and two from the 500-word level, and there are two sentences that I cannot understand. There must be someone here who's read it and can explain to me.

First, on p. 13, the mother spends a lot of time cleaning the son's room after he has left home:

好象除了收悉房间还是收悉房间。

I don't understand the repetition.

Edit: should have written 收拾, not 收悉

Second, there is the last sentence in the book. I think it contains an idiom, and I can't find it in my dictionaries. The son now understood:

有一些东西，你有它的时候，可是不觉得好；可是没有了，才知道没有它不行。

I think the 不行 may mean 'is impossible', in the sense of 'nothing is impossible', but I can't confirm it.

In this connection, I could ask my Chinese teacher on Thursday, but I wonder if there's another way I could have worked out these sentences. I managed the rest of it. Are the dictionaries I have in Pleco too small? I realize these books contain some Chinese syntax that is perhaps more advanced than the vocab, but I can find that in grammar books on the few occasions I can't work it out for myself.

(When I wrote this header I was told by The Professor 'Sorry, we don't have family discounts'!)

Many thanks in advance for any help,

Margaret

Study entire lists and not having to learn all words

2012-01-31T12:44:59Z

krovy7: I have created some word lists. When I study them, the words will keep repeating until I have learned them and then move on to more words.

Is there a way to study all of the words on my list without needing it confirmed that I have learned the first group of words. I want to practice all of the words in any given list whether I have perfected them or not.

Is this possible, or do I need Skritter to see that I have learned words before it shuffles through the rest of the list?

time series colors

2012-01-30T15:15:48Z

Olaf: I've noticed lately that the time series plots on the progress pages have been displaying different colors. Is this a result of a redesign or is this meant to tell me something?

I've looked through the FAQs and help pages but didn't find anything about on this topic.

Miscellaneous list not adding words

2012-01-29T15:56:02Z

OCaptain: Hello All,

I am currently using 5 lists:three from basic textbooks I've used, one I'm making based on a textbook I'm using, and a miscellaneous list. My miscellaneous list just has some characters I quick add when I think I need to know a component of another character, or think of a character I need to study. However, when I study all lists, it never adds words from the miscellaneous list. Any ideas why? Settings seem the same as all the other lists...

Question about Chinesepod+skritter?

2012-01-29T15:10:38Z

DaXia: From what I understand there is some kind of cooperation between chinesepod and skritter, and that there should be some kind of integration function?

There is supposed to be some way to add words from chinesepod to skritter, but I cant find the button, and please please please tell me there is a button to autoadd all words from your chinesepod wordlist, autocreating a new vocablist with the same name as the label-name of your words list...please please please.

Dont tell me I have to first download the words from chinese pod and reupload them to skritter, because in that case, I dont really see where the "integration" part" is.

I dont know where to ask this, so I will ask both at skritter and Chinesepod. Twice the chance of getting a good answer^^
Thanks!

綺麗vs奇麗

2012-01-29T13:49:10Z

Zyphen: I found 奇麗 in the JLPT 4 list (Section 11). I've never seen きれい written this way before. Only as 綺麗. So I asked my Japanese girlfriend about it. She also has never seen 奇麗 before and even said that it's weird.

However, doing a google search for it I came across this:
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q139444933

Here, some posters say that 奇麗 is the normal way of writing it and that the 綺 in 綺麗 is an archaic way of writing it and is not in the jouyou kanji. They said that some people still write it this way though because has a prettier feel to it.

What is everyone else's experience with this? In what way would you recommend writing it?

Save me tool

2012-01-29T12:24:02Z

Noqa: Shouldn't "save me" leave some reviews for the current day?
I use it, when I see the number of reviews is big enough to undermine my motivation and also I like, when I can add some new words, so I don't get bored too quickly.

But it doesn't mean I cannot do some reviews on the current day. And making number of due item zero feels much like cheating.

99 Chinese Riddles

2012-01-29T10:19:47Z

孟志书: During the spring festival I tend to have far too much time on my hands. I decided to refresh on using JavaScript and XML. So an afternoon of playing around yielded this website.

http://miyu.joshmcfarland.net/

Your objective is to guess what word the riddle谜语 is referring to. The answers aren't complex words and usually fall into the categories of food, animals, professions and so on.

It only accepts simplified character input (not pinyin). You can use the hint button to reveal the category or the "I don't know!" button to get the answer.

Good luck!

Simplified that look like Traditional

2012-01-29T01:29:40Z

Antimacassar: I've come across a few characters that are weren't simplified but look as if they should have been. In other words they look very similar to other traditional characters that were simplified.

1. 篝

冓 is used in quite a few traditional characters (講, 溝 and 購 spring to mind, all of which were simplified), but 篝 is still in use on the mainland.

2.躞, 燮

The way the 火s and the 言 are arranged here makes it look like a traditional character to me. Similar to the top parts of both 勞 and 變

3. 爨

The top of this character is very similar to 興

4. 焉

I'm not sure if the bottom of this character is a 火 or not but even so it looks to me that it should have been simplified in the same way that the bottom part of 馬 was changed to 马.

5. 霓

this has an 兒 which was simplified to 儿.

OK, I admit these are not exactly common characters, but even still...

Does anyone else know any other examples of this?

HSK resources

2012-01-27T00:09:33Z

Mandarinboy: Finally decided to go for a HSK test just for the fun of it. Naturally Skritter is my main source for practicing but some HSK test practicing is also very useful. So, here are some of the sources I have come across that do have nice test samples.

http://www.chinesetesting.cn/godownload.do
Nice site with manuals, sample tests, audio files for all levels.

http://www.konfuzius-institut.at/en/chinesische-sprache/pruefungen/
Similar to above but fewer resources.

http://www.hsk.org.cn/Download_E.aspX
More sample tests

http://www.chinauniversity.info/2010/12/hsk-test-free-download.html
More info and sample tests

http://www.confuciusinstitute.qut.edu.au/study/proficiency.jsp
And more

http://www.miraclemandarin.com/english/download/
a few more

http://www.tanos.co.uk/hsk/
and yet some more

http://popupchinese.com/hsk/test
Do have some nice podcasts and info even with the free account.

If anyone do have more I am all ear. There are several books that do come with a CD with much better tests and practicing. Got some in China last week as well. However, those sites are free;-)

How to study words?

2012-01-26T11:53:40Z

OCaptain: Hi All, Maybe it's just the lists I'm using to study from (contemporary Chinese 1&2), but I can't figure out how to study complete words, not just individual characters. I sometimes study parts of words separately, or sometimes just one character of a 2 character word. Is there a way to study both characters together? Thanks for any help, I'm sure there is something obvious I'm missing here!

Learn some chengyu

2012-01-26T06:59:10Z

Mandarinboy: Having a lot of older Chinese relatives i have for a long time heard all of those chengyu they use. It turn out to be rather fun to learn also the story behind them. For this I found an fun site giving a story behind a lot of them. It do lack good search functions ( if you do open a chengyu there is a search function for the site though) but for some fun reading for the moment this works fine.

http://chineseproverbstories.com/

Am I messing up my reviews?

2012-01-26T05:52:44Z

Solarin88: So, for school I basically have to switch between different textbooks, with the newest one being in simplified. Since it's in simplified, whenever I cram for that textbook's chapter I just switch the entire setting to simplified and then switch back to traditional when I'm studying for my other textbooks. I usually click "no" to the option asking if I want all the lists to redo, but I'm wondering if switching back and forth between these two options messes up my reviews?

I know I can just set it to both, but I don't want to spend time learning both when I have quizzes so frequently.

Chinese reading site

2012-01-25T23:25:05Z

Mandarinboy: Found this site today: http://www.chinesestoriesplatform.com It is free and do have many short texts in various grades with audio available, all major words in separate lists with example sentences etc. Over all it seems to be a nice site for some reading practice.It is operated by a Chinese teacher so the quality should be good on the material. From what I have read until now it really seems so. Texts are available in simplified, traditional or pinyin. Could be something for us that do need more reading practice that suits our level. The sounds files is actually nice to listen to as well since it gives good listening practice.

Where can I report mistakes?

2012-01-25T18:34:42Z

Arman: Practicing kanji but put in french and encountered a mistake. =)

more iphone vs android info

2012-01-25T18:30:53Z

Dennis: From Wired on line:

"That iPhone 4S really sucks, huh? Not only did Apple sell 37 million iPhones in the last three months, the “disappointing” iPhone also outsold Android at Verizon."

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/01/iphone-outsells-all-verizon-android-phones-combined/

Progress Viewer Problems

2012-01-25T12:45:52Z

GaryM: I started using Skritter just over a week ago. In the progress view a couple of days ago my Character Writings figure said 150, and after further study it has dropped to 115. However, when I press the "Totals" button, it shows my Character Writings as 183. The graph also displays this level. There seems to be quite a discrepency between what the "Totals" and graph are showing me, and what the "Character Writings" is telling me. Up until a couple of days ago these values were always in line. Shouldn't the two values always be the same (i.e. the Totals figure and those values found next to the graph)? I am misunderstanding something here?

Android tablet problems

2012-01-25T07:42:13Z

kellyl: I just got a brand new Android tablet and was excited to try out Skritter, which was one of the main reasons I got it. Unfortunately I cant seem to get it to work.

The study page comes up OK, but my finger just drags the page around, rather than write anything. I have an Asus Transformer Prime running Honeycomb and Flash 11. Is there some secret to get it to work?

way to search previous for previously made lists

2012-01-24T22:27:01Z

Bohan: One thing that would be nice is if we could search for old lists by typing in the list name. I'm only saying this because I'm looking for a list I made and I can't find it, but I'm sure it's in there somewhere because I saw it a few minutes ago.

And one more thing that would be nice is if there were numbers that we could click on , such as :
1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 41-50, etc
for the archive of previously made lists. Because sometimes there's too much clicking to get to older lists