I knew I would loose some traction with taking a month hardly Skrittering after the spring festival but I didn't expect the backslide to be quite this dramatic:

http://i814.photobucket.com/albums/zz62/2shanghai/all/after_vacation_skritter.jpg

On the plus side, now that I'm back at it I'm sure I'll get some really nice stats in the other direction once I finally clear out my review queue (I've gone from 2400 down to about 900 due for review and am motivated to get that to zero before I start adding again and with the air outside in Shanghai right now, it's a great time for staying inside!).

The quote at the bottom of the page in the screen-shot seems quite appropriate!

Ouch. I think when you've so many characters to go through you rather stop thinking as much as you should do and forget even more.

Skritter makes me scared to go on holiday.

You'll regain that very quickly once you start ploughing in the time again. I would guess that is a fairly typical curve when you take off that much time.

加油！

You'll come back, don't worry. I actually think that this kind of deep forgetting can be helpful for long-term retention. Let's say you forget something simple like 您; then you'll beat yourself up for forgetting something simple and that will strengthen the memory for next time. You may even remember the moment when you forgot it.

On the other hand, it's easy to look at a long queue and get discouraged. But if you've gone from 2400 due to 900 due then you should be down to zero in a day or so.

You're not alone, by the way:

http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=19650284

James

"Skritter makes me scared to go on holiday. "

This made me laugh so much.

Given these statistics, your retention should rebound within a few days.

Skrittering progress has two components:

(1.) The retention rate and, possibly, the number of characters learned go down when you review difficult characters or add new ones.
(as reflected by your most recent statistics)

(2.) The retention rate quickly rebounds shortly afterwards if enough time is invested.

I logged on this morning and Skritter had claimed that I went backwards yesterday. From 507 to 494 or something. Which was odd because I studied for two hours and had gone into the textbook another couple of chapters.

What hope for me remembering if Skritter forgets? :)

Yeah, I know it will come back and that's why I try not to focus too much on characters learned but rather on spending quality time (that is, time when I'm not too tired to make any real progress). I used to study a lot after class but I was too tired and didn't get nearly as much out of it as I could have.

Lurks, your going backwards isn't too bad - add a few new words with characters you know but you don't know them in the context of a word and it's pretty easy to go backwards.

Interestingly, I went hiking in Hangzhou today and asked another hiker from our group (Shanghai Outings club) how she studies characters and as it turns out I met a fellow skritterer.