I just noticed the sample sentences for the first time (I've been on hiatus from Skritter and just got back). Thanks for this feature. I can already feel it boosting my learning efficiency.

Where can this be found ?

Awesome! I think the example sentences have a lot of potential once we destroy the kinks.

They're in alpha now, so just showing up for people who asked to be alpha testers during the last alpha test (custom definitions, mnemonics, etc.). I can add you if you like. They're showing up in the prompt right now with no way to turn any of them off, and additionally in the word popup. There's more info in this now-giant thread:
http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=44007106

I'm fine for now, I'll wait for the release to the general audience.

Sweet - most of them are beyond my level right now (especially after 3 weeks off of Skritter, 2500 items in the queue when I started up again yesterday, talk about a demotivator!), but they'll be great once I catch up with my queue and have time to pay closer attention to them.

That's the Skritter team for you, always finding ways to further improve what is already a terrific app!

Of course, editing, selecting between multiple samples, and adding new sentences has already been requested. I'm also looking forward to hiding, and would expect to already be in the plan.

Once or twice I've run into words I'm not familiar with, which is great. I'd hope we could click on them to get to that great word pop-up window with more information and abilities add them to our queue.

Also, when I click the sentences now, they give away the word being asked for, something I think should only be given after all parts being asked for have been completed. On the same note, the tool tip (float over with the mouse) gives the pinyin for the word being asked for.

This came a bit out of the blue for me, but I'm enjoying it so far. It will definitely increase my clock time in the next few weeks. Thanks for the continued hard work Skritter dudes.

I'm one of those in the crowd who really likes the sample sentences. Just chiming in with my :-D.

Is this for both Chinese and Japanese or just for Chinese learners? I would be interested for Japanese.

I think the sample sentences are a great idea, even though they are rather beyond me at present.
Rachael.

Slightly off topic, would anyone out there like to try putting all these words in one or two sentences for me? 吃惊 / 凉快 / 原谅 / 冷静 and 可怜!?! I need to practice all these similar but different characters!

Great idea! sample sentences always help me a lot!

吃惊
这消息使他们大为吃惊。 The news greatly surprised them.
他吃惊地睁大了眼睛。 He opened his eyes wide in surprise.
发现她在那，我感到很吃惊。 I was amazed to find her there.

凉快
下点雨会使我们感到凉快一些。 Some rain would cool us down.
因为天气热，她穿了一件凉快的衣服。 As it was a hot day she wore a cool dress.

原谅
请原谅我的字写得不好。 Please excuse my bad handwriting.
看我的日记是一种不可原谅的侵犯个人隐私的行为。 Reading my diary is an inexcusable invasion of privacy.

冷静
无论发生什么事都要保持冷静。 Keep calm, whatever happens.
他冷静客观地看著她遭受的痛苦. He watched her suffering with clinical detachment.

可怜
我们送给那个可怜的小女孩一份生日礼物作为友谊的表示。 We sent the poor girl a birthday present in token of friendship.
这个政治家发现饥饿的孩子们可怜的哭声让人不忍心听下去。 The politician found the piteous cries of the starving children unbearable.

These and more sentences can be found here:
http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/node/115

I'll be working on making the sentences hide/show the right parts so as to not give things away when they shouldn't.

We haven't done the Japanese sentences yet; that'll probably be a while. Later we'll incorporate the Tatoeba project sentences, which will have both Chinese and Japanese sentences translated into many languages (not just English). We're starting with the Chinese to work out the design.

@Nick what do you think about factoring in the characters already learned in deciding which example sentences are shown? I would like to get a bunch of example sentences based on what I already know, if none are available I would like to see sentences available containing the fewest number of unknown characters. I can do this for myself off-line, but it would be cool if it was part of Skritter.

It would probably be pretty CPU intensive, so perhaps this could be computed once daily (or even weekly) for every user? Is this at all feasible? Or perhaps there could be a button somewhere saying "compute my new sentences" and you could run a daily batch job to compute only for those users requesting an update. I know this complicates stuff so that is probably not the best way, but it would be cool.

I do not quite know what difficulty is best in helping me understand characters/words though. I imagine the sentences should be simple. On the other hand they should probably show a couple uses of a word and not just one use.

Could I be added as an alpha user for the example sentences?

Will the sample sentences work also for traditional chinese? or just simplified?

@skritterjohan - yeah if words have more than one usage then more examples would be good... but this can get out of hand for some words.

Up above I meant just 2 sentences containing ALL the 5 words inside... my bad it was not clear! Just for writing practice on paper.

lets have a go....
虽然他见到让人吃惊的事情时他会保持冷静，可怜的是什么都不动他的心。
请原谅我，我以为今天天气会好热所以我穿的衣服是比较凉快。

It's something we could try later, skritterjohan, though it be complex--it's what I originally envisioned for this, too. But I want to see how well our default toughness ranking works. Doing it per-user may not have much advantage. I'll get you on the alpha testing here.

They work for simplified and traditional, yes. Let us know if any of the traditional conversions didn't turn out right.

Amen to this feature. Yes, it is effective and probably (as ulyart writes) boosting my efficiency. However, I have to say it's a different kind of efficiency than Skritter first gave me. Before all the additional tools of mnemonics and sentences, I could plow through my queue relatively quickly. I loved going through lists, adding to my vocabulary, writing and writing.

Now I tick off some characters and words easily but, more often than not, I mull over the sentences and usage. Now I merely chip away at the queue but I believe the long term result is better.

As for toughness, Nick: it's about right for me. Some sentences I understand immediately, others have an unfamiliar character which the pinyin clarifies, others have altogether new words which I sometimes look up, sometimes not. And then there have been those intimidatingly long sentences which I skip, for later (?).

All in all, I agree with the topic header.

Here's one fine example in the range of sample sentences... while studying an agonizingly long list of *dull* conjunctions I get: the dog got sick and died.
这只狗开始生病并且很快就死了.
Just what I needed, a laugh. I will now associate 并且with a dead dog. Thank you!

Back to Skrittering after about six or seven weeks off whilst travelling in China. Could you put me on the list of alpha testers for sample sentences, Nick? It's the dead dogs that have persuaded me...

安静 - 让汤姆保持安静. Ask him to keep quiet.
what does tang mu mean?? 'he'?!?

汤姆 - usually Tom but I've also seen some Thomas.

Welcome back, thinkbuddha! You're in. Good luck clearing your reviews!

I've now got the song "Dead Dogs Two" stuck in my head. Better than most that get stuck in there, I guess.

Thanks, Nick. I'll need all the good luck I can get. 7222 and counting!

Incidentally, the worst dog-related song I have ever had stuck in my head was "How much is that doggy in the window (woof, woof)?" For about a week.

@pts - cheers - I was worried I was missing something fundamental there haha

Sounds like a great feature. Could I get added to the testing? Thanks!

DRBean has been bathed in the grey glow of the example sentences.

这首歌曲的曲调悲伤. The song has a plaintive melody.

It sure does. I'm basking in the glow.