Hi visitor! This is the Skritter newsletter. Look for it on the 15th of each month. In this issue: site changes, a user interview, and the results of the last challenge!
Monthly Stats: Hours spent: 3,319 // Items studied: 2,408,151 // Characters learned: 66,160 // Retention: 90.09%
Last Month's Work:
Coming Features:
Japanese has launched!
The Japanese version of the site launched on January 30th! We blogged about it here, and we were written up by Japan Today. We're not done bragging, so if you would like to help us spread the word, drop us a line.
Active Reading
For too long we have suffered without reading practice! Soon this will be remedied. Nick now has a working prototype that will let you type in the reading and have Skritter grade you in real time. Excellent!
Refer your friends
Several folks have requested a referral system, and now you can earn time on Skritter by sending your friends our way. Here's the blog post on the topic, and you can check it out live by clicking here.
Writing Tablets
Okay, so in last month's newsletter we said we'd get this up by the time this newsletter went out, and we're a little behind. But fear not! Wacoms will definitely be on the site by this time next month. Sorry to everyone waiting on this.
Partnering, Twittering, Chatting
You can now add vocabulary from MDBG by clicking on the little Skritter icons next to words, you can follow us on Twitter, and we just set up live chat from Olark so you can talk to Nick or George any time they are online. Give it a try.
Vocabulary Overhaul
Vocabulary confusion is rife on the site, but not for long. We've got a lot of good ideas for how to make it right. Seriously, can anyone really tell us how the Queue actually works? That's what we thought.
User Interview: 戴莉絲婷
Christine Davenport
Christine is new to the community since September, and is a new learner of Chinese. We'd noticed that she's been super-enthusiastic about Skriter for quite a while, so we couldn't help but ask about what kept her going and her thoughts about her Chinese learning quest.
"Why am I learning Chinese? In general, I love languages - I already speak French and some Spanish and hope to learn others after Mandarin. Specifically, learning Chinese is a goal I've had for quite some time. I've always been interested in Chinese culture and art, and while in college I was able to travel to Taiwan with a friend I met during my undergrad years. It's because of contacts in both Taiwan and on the mainland (and the desire to go travel to those countries again one day) that I study both simplified and traditional characters.
I'm surprised at how much learning the traditional characters gives the words meaning and allows me to remember the simplified versions more easily.
Any Chinese-specific surprises? Everyone told me that it would be better to study either traditional or simplified characters first, that doing both would be too complicated, difficult, and overwhelming for a beginner. But that's not what I've found. I'm surprised at how much learning the traditional characters gives the words meaning and allows me to remember the simplified versions more easily. Because I'm interested in the culture and traditions as well as the language, studying the traditional characters gives me insights into other areas of Chinese culture.
What's with all the Skrittering? I use Skritter for a few reasons. First, beginning again at a basic language level is frustrating for me; I'm determined to progress as quickly as possible. Second, Skritter is a great learning tool. I love how it lets me set individual goals, have consistent practice time, provides instant feedback on progress, and offers support from other learners with a wide range of skills. Because I am studying on my own, I was initially concerned about how I was going to be able to accomplish these things on my own. Books and lessons abound, and I picked one as a starting point, but learning to read and write 汉字 is an entirely different beast, and I knew I was going to need help. I can't tell you how happy I was to find Skritter while surfing the web! I've even recommended it to several Asian language programs. I love it; keep up the great work!"
If you would like to share your Chinese learning story, reply to this email and let us know!
Newsletter Challenges
Last month's challenge is still running, so you have until the end of February to prove your mettle and win a shot at some sweet swag.
To recap, this month's challenge is all about each day in a row that you've practiced for more than 10 minutes between January 15th and February 28th. You'll get one ticket for each day in your longest chain. Your tickets will be entered in a raffle to win either a hand drawn avatar, a Skritter mug, or a Skritter T-shirt. This choice is yours!
Next month's challenge will be based on the new referral system. It's simple: you have until March 15th to refer as many friends to Skritter as you can. The top 5 referrers will get their choice of prize from the three options above.
Winners from last month's T-shirt challenge are enjoying their T-shirts to the fullest. We received this photo of Tiina proudly wearing her Skritter T-shirt despite wintery Finnish weather. She writes: "The weather here in Finland is rather cold, today -12 C but the sun was shining ... as you see it is a bit too cold at the moment to wear a T-shirt without a jacket but I promise to have it on next Monday evening when I have my Chinese lesson at the university in Tampere." Thanks for the picture Tiina, and congrats to everyone else sporting their shirts around the globe.
