How about a forum thread where anyone can post their accomplishments? Want to toot your own horn about something? Did you just finish a long list, pass X words, or exceed x% retention rate? Post your Skritter-related accomplishments here!

I just passed a milestone; I passed 1000 words learned in Japanese. :-D

Woohoo, my "items to review" is now below 3,000 for the first time in weeks! ;P

James

My victory was knowing 50 words in Chinese. haha. It's a LOOONG time before I reach the 1000 mark. Congrats jcdoss, btw!

And James - YIKES.

I'm still just a few short of 1000 writings, but I /have/ just passed 100 'skritter hours' of study.

Can't fault it for giving me the motivation to do a bit each day!

@jcdoss, congratulations! I wish I where there. My Japanese is much less than that and i would have helped me a lot in my daily life in Tokyo to be at that level. Keep up the good work!

@Nickybr38, 50 is a good start and every journey starts with a first step so we have all been there. You seems very focused on your study is I am sure we soon will see you pass 100, 500 etc.

@James - Nice. I was there a couple months ago, and it takes some serious effort to dig yourself out of a hole like that. It's worth it once you're out, though.

@FatDragon Thanks. But really, I've been in this situation several times and am not stressed at all. It's just a matter of having other priorities that take me away from Chinese study, sometimes for weeks or months at a time.

Been using Skritter for about a week now and just passed 1000 character writings learned. Most of them I already learned years ago though, but still, I had a hard time remembering a lot of characters which I didn't write the last two years since I moved back to Europe. I'll probably steamroll up till about 2500 character writings learned this month, and after that it's going to be a lot slower, cause I'll actually have to learn new characters, not refresh old knowledge.

I don't know what I'm aiming for. I guess I need 4000 to feel comfortable reading literature?

I'm reading Chinese books now but I'm looking up characters/words all the time. I would define "comfortable" if I would just have to look up about five words a page.

@william what kind of books are you reading?

I barely know 2000 characters and I'd only have to look up 5 characters a page if I was that curious, usually not in the mood. That's with science text books and some newer novels my girlfriend picks out for me.

Huh? Didn't you say you were doing a non-Chinese subject in Chinese at a Chinese university or something?

@Byzanti yeah, passed the 2000 character mark a few weeks of heavy study after I started my courses in October.

I usually don't have to look up more than 5 words during an hour class. I love the way Chinese uses a minimal amount of words, characters, and ideas to describe science! If only English was so easy.

Of course, everything I read has been written in the past 10 years. Traditional Chinese literary works would be another world to me.

最近就看著《聊齋志異》的現代漢語版，偶爾還在看安妮寶貝，張小嫻這兩作家的小說，而其實也挺喜歡看老舍的作品；但一般就找不著那麼多時間看書本兒。這幾個月過日子忙得團團轉，差點也無暇看啦～但忍不住呢，兩岸有很多很值得看的書。向托馬斯，你喜歡看什麼樣兒的書呢？看科學該挺難的吧，我自己不敢設想看那樣的書。^^

Thomas: And you can get by with 2000 characters? How many words do you know? I'm impressed. There's no way at 2000 characters I would have been able to attend a Chinese for Chinese students class. Are these 2000 characters the result of rigorously studying the HSK lists or something?

@Byzanti I've studied words as they came into my life randomly over the past two years. I've skimmed a few HSK lists, adding only those words I haven't seen before. I've learned an incredible amount through intense immersion with my girlfriend. I have no idea how many words I know, don't bother inputting words I'm already familiar with. Lately I've been learning lots of plant species, minerals, and other biological and ecological words. If I ever get through those lists I guess I'd get up to 2,500 or so characters.

@william I had to translate your traditional characters, haven't bothered with those yet. I read anything I come across when I have the time: newspapers, modern stories, textbooks, and PowerPoint presentations : P I don't try to understand every character, just look up those I see in multiple places. This strategy has saved me lots of time not spent learning rare characters and improved my overall comprehension abilities.

Now I'm down to only 35 items due. I think I peaked at over 4,000 due at one point so this feels like a major victory.

Now maybe it's time for a new Twitter competition?

James

Got to 1,000 Chinese Words today! Pretty happy about it!

With all the chatter lately about badges, etc, I'd hoped some of you would be tooting your own horns in this thread more than you have! :-)

Congrats to everyone who's posted thusfar.