So, a while back we asked everyone what they thought about Skritter in a short open-response survey. We got a lot of feedback, and we noticed among the responses that quite a few people mentioned that Skritter was fun. Here are a few of the quotes we got:

"it is a lot of fun to sit and practice writing characters 20 to 30 minutes a day!"

"I use skritter because its fun - I can use it while watching a movie, tv or while listening to music. The learning experience is very palpable with an instant sense of satisfaction."

"The competitions are quite fun."

"Since I find it fun to work with I spend a lot of time working on characters."

"Addictive. Fun for children too. Absolutely brilliant for learning the characters of words that you already know the sounds and meanings for."

"It has sped up my learning curve very much and also made it much easier and more fun to study."

"Skritter offers me a platform to practice my characters that is fun and organized."

I am working on a redesign of our "Learn More" page and would like to include a few testimonials that support what our data indicates: that Skritter is fun! The problem is that we didn't track who submitted what to our survey and we did not ask permission to use anyone's survey responses so the above quotes are both unattributed and off-limits (gotta get permission after all).

I was wondering if anyone would be willing to answer the question "Is Skritter fun?" for inclusion on the new "Learn More" page. It would be great if we could get a small picture of your face to go with it (100x100px would do), but we only strictly need your name and title (student at UC Berkeley, Program Manager at IBM, etc). If you would be willing to help out, you can email me at george at. skritter.com.

If you think Skritter is boring I'd be interested to hear from you as well. We are trying to accurately represent Skritter to people and if our data is skewed, it's valuable to know that!

Sure, happy to do so. I'll email you.

Sure, me too.

I really think it's fun.

I don't need Chinese at the moment for studies or because I plan to go abroad (I have been to China this year and no further plans yet). It feels a little like an Roleplay Game with stats and levels and stuff. I just feel good if my characters known counter goes up and I feel that I know more and more and more
(the most saistfying thing is when I look on a vocabulary list and see the spots already occupiey with my knowledge by turning green.) :)

Thanks for the support guys, really appreciated. James, special thanks to you for being so prompt and helpful. I haven't been inundated with reports of people saying it's un-fun, so I'm thinking the user survey might have been accurate! :)

I don't know about fun, I'll have to think about it... However, what makes it GREAT is that it really helps me learn the characters in an efficient way. All the features like mnemonics and example sentences are great and the fact that I can track my progress and not waste time on things I already know.

"Fun" is a subjective -- and emotionally loaded -- term. Do I think it's fun? Sure. But mostly because it's like a video game and I *love* video games.

I don't think Skritter itself is fun but I do find learning Kanji to be fulfilling and satisfying. Skritter is very good at helping me achieve my Kanji goals. Though I find studying using just flashcards to be a dry experience even with something as great as Skritter. For it to be truly fun it would need to be integrated with content that's engaging and interesting (like Dramas, Manga, Anime).

Recently in Japan many different English TV shows (like Friends) and movies (like Forest Gump) that can be bought with integrated lessons. They are made by a company called SOURCENEXT (http://www.sourcenext.com/en/products/) CHOUJIMAKU Series. Though as far as I know they don't make Japanese learning material. I have met so many Otakus (geeks) who have tried to learn Japanese by watching as much anime as they could. Unfortunately most end up not learning anything using that method. The easiest thing to do would be to advertise trial Skritter lessons with ADV, and FUNimation DVDs. The coolest thing to do would be to talk with a company like SOURCENEXT and see if they would be interested in creating Japanese or Chinese learning software that integrates with Skritter and it's vocab lists.

@ddapore99 - that sounds like a great idea. I'd like to learn Dragon Ball Z Japanese. I'm sure the Japanese will appreciate me walking around Tokyo shouting ka-me-ha-me-HAAAAAAA!

Yea just go to some the kindergartens I teach at. I'm sure the kids would love it. In all seriousness though it would be great if I could understand everything my students said. By the way (jww1066) it's kind of hard to tell from your picture but you look like a teacher I knew a while back. Did you ever work at the Tokyo YMCA International School?

Nope, I just have that kind of face. People are always mistaking me for someone else.

To give a personal response to the question in the topic title: Skritter is fun, sometimes. Like any regular form of studying, it gets to feeling like work at times, but unlike many other forms of studying, Skritter really is fun a lot of the time. I personally find Skritter to be more fun when I get in the zone, which is more likely to happen if I've already done some Skrittering earlier in the day, and it helps if I've got a little adrenalin going (I often lift weights before/during Skritter time to get my heart rate up, and it helps).

I love it, probably like most people that really want to progress. I have used a lot of programs and stuff as I never saw a teacher and Yes "It is fun" and Yes it still can go a long way from here.

The question carries within it a big dose of American cultural priorities. (everything should be easily digestible)

I'm not sure I'd use the descriptor "fun". It's engaging enough to be a great learning tool because it manages to harness the underlying motivation we have to improve and learn.

It's challenging, rewarding and enjoyable, but if I wasn't interested in becoming literate, it would quickly become boring and tedious.

Fun?....I suppose, but I can think of things I'd rather do if I really wanted fun.

@brucejackson Well, it IS marketing...

At times, Skritter may be more 烦 then fun, but generally, fun > fan2.
P(烦)≃ 0.1

"Fun?....I suppose, but I can think of things I'd rather do if I really wanted fun."
I usually can't - and now please don't 可怜 me. For me, high levels of Skritter activity do not indicate diligence; it's exactly the other way round.

I go through phases. I suppose, for me, it taps that part of my brain that appreciates a video game. That part gets weary as well, though. I wouldn't play the same game indefinitely. The problem with Skritter is that you HAVE TO DO IT INDEFINITELY. Even after you know an adequate number of characters/words, you still have to maintain them. In essence, you have to practice them until the day you have decided to abandon your character skills. That is when it gets tedious.

Is it fun? Upon an occasion it is. I have gone through phases where I was wracking up to two hours a day on the Skritter clock. That means I was actually doing 3 or 4. I was enjoying myself as well. At the moment... At the moment I am so sick of studying formal Chinese that I just want to be done with it so I can go on to studying Spanish...

1600 words and 600 characters to go...

@west316 Why wait? Spanish is a blast and would be a piece of cake compared to Chinese.

do it like I do. learn Spanish and Chinese at the same time. :D

back to topic:

I think it would be fun to have a "buddy"-option to connect with friends/colleagues who are using this, where you can follow their "progress"-stats. but this should be optional for everyone as I guess not everyone wants to share this.

The fact that there is even a debate as to whether a character learning method is "fun" tells you something about the program. I have been studying Chinese for several years and learning to write characters has always been extremely tedious (writing them over and over again on a piece of paper), frustrating (constantly forgetting them), and utterly time consuming.

Skritter makes learning new characters much less aversive. Fun? Not in the sense that I look forward to doing it, but I certainly do not dread it like I do most forms of character acquisition.

@jww1066 - I couldn't help but laugh at that post. I am no where near as crazy as Itaju, though :).

I suppose I won't stop Chinese yet because I am a completionist at heart who doesn't want to jump back and forth between the two. Once I start something, I see it through. I can multitask fairly well, but I prefer not to juggle two languages at once. That bulldogged determination is what saw me through my previous Chinese slumps.

Yes, Spanish will be worlds easier after this. According to the statistics, Spanish takes 1/4th the time that Chinese does... 那么轻松！太好了！哈哈。。。

Whenever I try to brush up a little on my German in China, I start saying sentences like "ich 要 eine 杯咖啡" or "我要一个 tasse Kaffee." Some people might be able to do it, but studying two non-native languages at once is not a talent I have developed yet.

I'd like to tackle Spanish sometime (I've taken a couple basic courses and they were easier than easy, and that was before I started learning Chinese!), but it's not even on the back burner yet, more like still in the fridge.

@west316 What would it mean to "finish" Chinese? You can speak all the dialects (whatever that means)? You can read any text including Classical Chinese and oracle bones?

As for studying multiple languages at the same time, as long as they don't interfere with one another it's not a problem. I'm currently studying Portuguese, Russian, and Chinese; they have exactly zero overlap and the only problem is budgeting time. On the other hand, my Portuguese and Spanish interfere with each other like crazy.

I think when I used the basic mode it was fun, raw squigs is less fun but you learn more...that's just my impression. For me it's a tool and I don't really look forward to skrittering, but the progress stats keep me motivated.

@jww1066 - That statement goes back to an old debate I had with a friend of mine. You could put 10,000 hours into Mandarin to (maybe)master it OR you could put in 3500 hours and be really stinking good. What do you do with the remaining 6500 hours? I would go off and learn Spanish plus maybe another language. My friend was a master Chinese type, note he was already fluent in English and Spanish. I am the type to be content with merely being fluent. There is no way to truly finish a language. Heck, none of us have finished our native tongues, much less a different one.

Yes, you could pull the whole define fluent game, but, in the end, unless you plan on focusing intently on one language all of your life, you need to set a limit where enough is enough. That is what I meant by finish. I will cross my limit and can walk away content.

Leave the oracle bones for the sages and archaeologists. :)

The impression I get is that, for native English speakers, it takes much longer to get to the point where we can make ourselves understood in Chinese than in, say, French or Spanish. Considering only speaking, you can go along this scale:

1. you can't make yourself understood at all
2. you can make yourself understood in a basic way
3. you can express anything you need to
4. you speak correctly, but maybe not idiomatically or with some minor usage errors, and/or a foreign accent
5. you speak like a native

Getting from 1 to 2 seems quite difficult in Chinese (see http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/06/25/learning-curves-chinese-vs-japanese) and is pretty easy in Spanish. Getting from 4 to 5 is hard in any language. So, if you're already at level 4, why spend the extra effort to get to level 5? If you're an actor who has to speak without an accent, absolutely. Otherwise, what's the point? Go on to study something else that's more useful, like tantric sex or French cooking. ;)

The only reason I really want to get rid of my accent in Spanish is so my wife will stop making fun of me (mostly when I say 'll' like a Mexican or Central American, which she thinks is very entertaining).

James

Making yourself understood in Chinese is actually fairly easy. Understand these few words, and you can survive on the street. 这个，那个，对不起，谢谢，听不懂，英语吗？

Having a meaningful conversation is much more difficult, though.:)

I need to make a mental note to add learning tantric sex to my to do list...

Before we can argue about whether Skritter is fun, we need to define our terms. Somebody get the [English] dictionary. Yawn yawn. Can't be bothered with that, let's just waffle instead.

I think this might be a trans-atlantic issue, but I wouldn't say Skritter was fun. If I think of "fun" I think of laughing and smiling and being silly. Skritter is not conducive to any of those.

Skritter is great: it is effective, addictive and motivating, and most of all non-threatening. When I consider opening a text-book I need to be in a positive frame of mind otherwise I will think "it's too hard - I'll fail - I don't like failing" and I'll watch television instead. Somehow, Skritter avoids that trap.

I read somewhere that people in general are much more willing to put embarassing (truthful) answers into a computer questionnaire than in person, or even on paper. I can see that we don't care to impress a computer, but why do we worry about the paper version?
Maybe we think that if we write it "the teacher" will mark it, but if we put it in a computer it might stay anonymous.

Whatever the reason, Skritter works for me.

@West316, re tantric sex
I haven't tried it, so I'm no expert, but I did read up on it. Are you highly religious? Are you susceptible to hypnotism? If not, I wouldn't bother.
Also, Do you really need to move from a 4 to a 5?

@West316, re 英语吗
Firstly, thanks for your chinese characters: it made my day that I could decipher all of them. Yes!
Secondly, it's exactly the "英语吗" that is the problem. They do. I went to Norway years ago, and asked someone whether they spoke English. They said No, but then proceeded to have a perfectly adequate conversation in the language. Their targets are so much higher.

Rachael.

@jww1066

While it might be hard to see, I personally think there is significant overlap among the languages you mentioned -- at least in regards to syntax. All those languages are designed by humans to be used with humans.

Also, don't discount the benefit of learning alternative ways of saying the same thing without reverting to circumlocation. That's a skill that is transferable.

Once I figured out the difference between SOV and SVO -- in real time -- it changed my perspective on how I viewed languages.