I've heard a lot about Anki and from the forum posts, a lot people seem to use both Anki and Skritter. What benefits are there to using both? Is it more for learning phrases/sentences?

I find that I already don't have enough time to get through my Skritter review queue but I'm curious....

I think Anki is asbolutely invaluable. It has a plugin called Pinyin Toolkit, which is designed for Mandarin learning and is seriously useful.

It's good for vocabulary, phrase and sentence-level reviewing, and the settings are very fine grained so you can tune it to be as efficient as possible for you.

Skritter and Anki complement each other really well, in my opinion. I can often remember how to write a character because of an Anki review, and writing a character in Skritter means I usually remember it when reading. Definitely use Anki and Skritter together ;-)

For Chinese, I use Anki as my main complement to Skritter. I also study Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish (although Spanish is now in maintenance mode), and Anki is very useful for all of these.

There are several things you might want to study with Chinese:

characters
readings (pinyin)
definitions
audio

You can study any pair of those in either direction; for example, you can study with prompts that show you characters and you have to answer with the readings, or you can have a prompt with readings and you have to answer with the characters. Similarly you can study characters->definitions or definitions->characters or whatever other pair you like.

Skritter currently handles the following directions:

definitions (optionally with readings)->characters
characters->readings
characters->definitions

I use Anki for the definitions->readings direction as Skritter doesn't currently handle that. Also, Skritter isn't really set up for very long phrases, although this is improving.

What I find is that, if you study a word or a character on Skritter, it tends to require a certain amount of work to make it stick. However, if you also study a phrase that uses that word/character, it makes it easier to remember the character because you have multiple hooks to hang the memory on.

Even better, when you learn a phrase you are learning *all* the characters in that phrase and so can practice multiple new characters at a time. For example, when I learned the phrase

一朵鲜花插在牛粪上
yi4 duo3 xian1 hua1 cha1 zai4 niu2 fen4 shang4

lit. one [MW] fresh flower stuck located cow crap on top of
meaning: a beautiful or talented woman married to an ugly or untalented man

I didn't know the characters 插 (stick, stuck) or 粪 (crap), but this phrase lets me practice them both at the same time.

James

Personally I am a HUGE fan of Anki. I use it for all my other languages.

BUT: My personal opinion - and this is based on nothing but my own experience - don't try to use Anki for Mandarin. Well at least not at first. Later when you know some Mandarin it might be useful. I downloaded a Mandarin phrase list for Anki that I plan to use in the future.

I think hough if you start of learning like I did a month ar so ago, rather just stick with Skritter. If you want to learn phrases go to http://chinesepod.com You can actually import your chinesepod phrases (words) into Skritter.

Thats my 2cents. Not based on any facts or science though :D

Lol, Just when I posted my reply ->in jumps the other 2 <- what they both sy actually makes sense.

Maybe I just had a bad experience.

@ James: ¿Hable español? ¿Idioma loco? Estoy tratando de hacer malabares con mis 9 idiomas, pero debo decir que soy un estudiante de tiempo completo.

@aharlekyn: 我会西班牙语。Me parece un idioma más razonable que inglés, por lo menos la ortografía. ¿Cuáles 9 idiomas hablas tú?

I think the Chinese support in Anki is a little less intuitive than it should be, and the Pinyin and Mandarin Toolkits have a number of problems that are not obvious at first; for example, the tone marks are often wrong because they don't take context into account.

Anyone wanting help getting set up should feel free to email me at jww1066 [at sign] gmail.com

James

Soy estudiante en negocio internacionales y lenguas.Sé cuatro antiguas lenguas y siete lenguas modernas. Aún así el aprendizaje. Idiomas modernos: Alemán, Español, Inglés, Afrikaans, Ivrit, Mandarín. Antiguos idiomas: Latín, Arameo y Griego. Algunos sé con fluidez, otros un poco.

Will def contact you about Mandarin on Anki.

Wow, that's great. Why do you study so many ancient languages? Are you studying religion?

James

Will send you an e-mail. Don't want to go waaay of topic from 2shanghai question. hehehehehe

Thanks all - quite usefull. And aharlekyn, feel free to go off topic - I'm interested in the answer to James' question (personally just studying Mandarin is more than enough for me; I want to learn French eventually but not at the same time).

@2shanghai: Studying French at the same time wouldn't be much of a problem because it has absolutely no connection to Chinese. Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, etc. on the other hand, would interfere with each other like crazy. An Italian friend of mine studied to be a translator, so she learned Spanish, French, English, and German all at the same time, and she said after a couple of years she was so confused she could hardly speak Italian any more.

According to our friends at the US State Department, Chinese is one of the hardest languages for native English speakers, while French is one of the easiest. So if you can make it to some level of fluency in Chinese, French should be a piece of cake (a delicious and subtly flavored piece of cake, naturally)

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers

James

aharlekyn, me parece que se dice 'lenguas antiguas'.

Thanks James - I did take a french assessment test when I had just first started learning Chinese and a few Chinese words came out but I really doubt that would happen now.

For me it's more a question of time and mental energy to learn two languages at once. The biggest challenge (for me, and I think for most) is forgetting what you've already learned; dividing my attention between two languages would mean less time studying either and thus much more forgetting, slower progress, frustration, crying, giving up, etc.

Your story about your Italian is entertaining - thanks for sharing.

I find that interesting about the State Department since most of the Chinese teachers I have talked to have said that native English speakers seem to have an easier time learning the spoken aspects of the language than most. That could just be those teachers' experience, or other foreigners have it even worse than we do.

I felt sick to my stomach when I read the comparison numbers between Spanish and Chinese, though. If I go for a third language it will definitely be Spanish.

Learning Chinese is playing major havoc with my English grammar. Who knew a second language could so badly derail one's first language?

I read that you do tend to forget things in your own language while learning a new one... But after learnt [err] But after it's learnt you get it back again. That was mostly about words though.

Plus, I figure we are masters of our own language and we can do with it as we please.

@west316 I can come up with a theory for why that might be, but I would just be speculating. In any event, the FSI was only interested in teaching Americans so those numbers are only for native English speakers, but it would be very interesting to see a matrix of language learning difficulty for natives of different languages. I'm told that French is even more difficult than English for Chinese speakers, for example.

As for forgetting things in your native language, it happens to me all the time. I used to be pretty good at English vocabulary but a lot of the less-frequently-used words are harder to recall now and I am more prone to accidentally say the Spanish version, particularly if it's similar to the English word.

Although I have to say that studying Spanish has improved my English in some ways. I'm much more careful about verb tenses than I used to be, for example.

James

In two and a half months I have to take the LSAT and writing an essay in English is actually making me a little nervous. I am currently living in China and at this point, with the exception of talking with family on the phone and the occasional western friend, all of my day to day interaction is in Chinese. The Chinese definitely outnumbers the English by a large margin.

I think using both is a big mistake. One brain = one deck of flashcards. Enough said. Using two independent decks is inherently inefficient. So stick with ONE and no more.

I use Anki but I've just (very briefly) tested the demo of Skritter, and here are my thoughts, some of which may be incorrect. [A] means Anki wins, [S] means Skritter wins.

1. [A] Skritter isn't free, Anki is free, and also open-source for those who care.
2. [S] Skritter requires very little set-up, so you can start studying quickly, whereas Anki can be rather daunting for the newcomer.
3. [A] Anki is remarkably more powerful than Skritter once you are familiar with all its features. This power allows you to maximize learning rates.
4. [A] You need internet access to use Skritter, whereas Anki can be used both online and offline.
5. [A] Anki is more flexible. You can customize flashcard data fields, formatting, add unlimited media files (both audio and images), HTML, etc, I could go on. I like flexibility above all.
6. [A] Skritter's handwriting may seem enticing at first but realistically it is a waste of time. Firstly, it won't help your writing look beautiful, because for that you need a real pen and paper. Secondly, you don't need the software to tell you when you are right or wrong because you are not stupid, and so you know when you have made a mistake by comparing what you’ve written with what you see on the screen. Thirdly, if you don't care too much about the beauty of your handwriting, I suggest you use a chopstick and pretend you are writing on your desk, thus saving paper (that's what I do). It's a bit like playing air guitar. Or better still, visualize the character in your head. You can even visualize the animation in your head, which is actually much better than relying on the software to do it for you. Because I consider this feature to induce laziness, I give this point to Anki.

7. [S] Skritter can pronounce the characters and words, whereas in Anki you have to record them yourself, and I suspect recording one’s own potentially incorrect pronunciation is generally not a good idea.

8. [A/S draw] In Anki you usually make your own flashcards, although decks are indeed available for download. In Skritter the material is pre-made for you, by people who live in a totally different context. This I think is a rather unnatural way to learn. I personally only like to learn what I have heard or read in a context that I am involved in and that naturally interests me rather than a context imposed by a text book or someone who doesn’t know me.

Anki: 6/8
Skritter: 3/8

So for me it’s Anki all the way. The flexibility and power of Anki are unparalleled. Anki is more powerful than any other SRS system out there, but I think VERY few people know how to use it effectively. Once you are familiar with all its features you will start to think "Oh, what if I did this and that?". There are many clever ways to optimize learning rate with Anki. I think the online tutorials barely cover 10% of what it can do, and I don't think even the developer is aware of how much power he has built into this app.

Regards,

Scoox

Is it possible to add your own entries into Skritter? I've only tested the demo but it seems weird not to be able to. I suspect one or two points in my previous post my be incorrect, so please forgive me.

Both Anki and Skritter are great, just use whichever one suits your needs best.

Scoox.

Scoox, you clearly haven't used Skritter enough if that's your opinion of it. It's also a lot more flexible and does a lot more than you think.

Skritter is not there to make your handwriting look beautiful, it is there to schedule your character writing automatically for you (although respecting the strokes has improved by writing since using Skritter, that's for sure). While I could use anki for words, Skritter is a lot more powerful and convenient for this (hidden pinyin, mnemonics, character breakdown in words, example sentences, custom definitions, pictures -- as well as the SRS and conveniently writing the character on the same system).

"In Skritter the material is pre-made for you" Err? No. There are premade lists avaliable, including that of the HSK, text books, but you are able to add your own words (even if not in the database), choose your own definitions, add pictures and choose example sentences. It's very flexible.

You have clearly got the wrong end of the stick from the demo. Skritter is a more specialised SRS system which works fantastically well for words and characters.

I also use Anki. But whereas I use Skritter for characters/words, I use anki for sentences. Both work great, for their own uses.

PS why drag up a 5 month old thread?

"Why drag up a 5 month old thread"... I don't get why people like you get so upset about others joining the thread late. The thread has not been closed so late replies are perfectly acceptable. Furthermore, your reply is even later than Scoox's. Jeez!

Yeah I was wrong about a few things, like I said, so sorry about that. I still prefer Anki anyway. In the end of the day what matters is what we have learnt, not how we have learnt it.

Cheers all!

Scoox.

Just curios: why come o the Skritter (which you haven't joined yet?) forum to tell all the people that love Skritter (because they are using it), that you don't like Skritter after you've admitted that you don't know Skritter. Lol. Am I the only one finding this funny?

If you want to be convinced why you should use Skritter create a thread: "Why should I use Skritter". I'll bet you'll be convinced at the end of the day.

PS @ Oktupuz: Byzanti didn't seem upset, only curios. Which frankly I am also. It seem to me you are the first upset one in this whole thread...

Scoox, thanks for the interesting comparison of Skritter and Anki! It helps to know what people think, especially when it's negative. I can see our demo isn't doing a very good job.

I've started using Anki for Spanish recently and it is pretty great. I'm enjoying the sentence practice. But I feel I'm not getting nearly as much out of it as I could, because I'm not willing to go and customize all the fields of all the cards and make decks with just what I want to learn. This extra effort is too much for lazy me. I downloaded some shared deck with some richer cards in it, but now along with "please open the door" it has me studying "One of the members of that couple had an accident, but we don't know whether it was the girl or the guy," which is too hard for me.

The Skritter idea is that because it knows you're studying Chinese/Japanese, it can do a ton of this stuff for you and you can just learn, with prompts better than you would have made with Anki anyway. Except for not quite as many different types. So you would still want to use Anki for those things Skritter doesn't do.

By the way, when my Wacom was busted a while back, I tried it such that when I was prompted, I wrote the characters on paper. Filled up many, many sheets. I was totally surprised that it took about twice as long! Writing onto the same screen as you're being prompted from requires much less switching of attention. And the self-grading does take more time and effort. These things probably aren't important differences unless you're writing characters, though.

@Scoox You're way off base on number 6. I'm a big Anki fan, but Skritter leaves Anki in the dust if you actually want to learn to write.

The point about beautiful handwriting is misguided; first, you're not looking for beautiful handwriting, but *legible* handwriting, and Skritter has delivered for me in that department. I have TERRIBLE handwriting in the Latin alphabet, and have learned 99% of my Chinese characters only through Skritter on the computer, no pen and paper involved. Now after a year-plus Skrittering, Chinese people always compliment me on my 汉字, and I can see the results myself, they're not just being nice.

On the self-grading issue, this is a huge problem for beginning students in particular; they don't know enough to recognize their own mistakes. Plus if you write with a chopstick you can convince yourself that you did it right even when you totally screwed it up as there's no evidence to the contrary.

I have some flash cards with Chinese characters that I copied out way back when and they look insane because I was copying visually and didn't understand anything about Chinese characters. Skritter helped a great deal with that because it catches many minor problems with writing which otherwise I wouldn't have noticed.

With that said, there are still some things that Skritter doesn't catch. I didn't realize that 午/牛 and 天/夫 were different for a long time, because Skritter will accept one in place of the other. That argues for *more* external checking, not less.

@Nick ¡ponte las pilas, las oraciones largas te hacen fuerte! But seriously, you do need to vigorously maintain your Anki decks. If a sentence is too long, first study its sub-phrases (down to two or three words at a time) then build up to the whole sentence.

@Oktupuz Huh? Who got upset? And who are "people like you"? As far as I know Byzanti is a single person.

James

Well, I had problems getting Anki to work when I tried fiddling with it several months ago. I posted questions and emailed people and got no response. At Skritter, if I can ask tech support anything and almost always get a same-day response, and oftentimes a same-day fix. So, +10 for tech support.

I do wish I could use Skritter offline (ie, log in, download whatever's due for the day, then log off) so I could practice while mobile, but so far that's the only lingering issue I have w/Skritter.

@jww1066 "Studying French at the same time wouldn't be much of a problem because it has absolutely no connection to Chinese. Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, etc. on the other hand, would interfere with each other like crazy."

Language interference depends on a number of factors. For me, Chinese interferes with some of the languages I know, most notably Russian. Symptoms usually weaken after extended periods of active usage.

jww1066, I tried to Google Translate your Spanish message. "ponte las pilas," translated as "please batteries", but without the comma, "ponte las pilas" translated as "NOGGIN". I think I'll go with NOGGIN. My Spanish is going to be so great!

@nick "ponte las pilas" means "加油" or "come on! let's go! try harder! etc." Literally it means "put in your batteries".