Perhaps a stupid idea, but could the same engine used to help us learn how to properly write Chinese and Japanese characters be used to teach Chinese and Japanese people how to properly write English words? With 52 upper and lower case characters this seems rather trivial to implement. Add a vocabulary list for the most popular English textbook series in China (Longman New Concept English) and example sentences from that textbook, as well as display videos inline (the textbook videos are all on Youku) and you might have another success on your hands.

I don't think there's much sense in drawing latin script, while t can be typed much more comfortably.

Though, I admire Skritter system in general and surely something similiar would be awsome in helping learning any other languages. Maybe I'm blind, but I haven't seen any learning platform this well designed as Skritter. I was using Anki, but it wasn't griping enough.
But I'm afraid the Skritter guys have decided to focus on Chinese.

It depends on the age of the student, it's not too hard to teach older students how to write english. I think it would be better to release a version of skritter that teaches Japanese and Chinese to native Japanese and Chinese students. But right now the skritter guys have their plates full so it won't be happening any time soon.

Skritter have said before that they don't want to broaden too much, they pride themselves in being very good at a specific thing.
Also, I think that English versions already exist in primary schools in the uk; it was 10 years ago (oh god I'm old!) that we had a primitive handwriting program. Maybe there's a market for transferring this to Asia, maybe not. Many schools in china teach pinyin and English from a fairly young age, so it might not be an issue. Spelling on he other hand may be!

Haha. Catherine, I am so old that I had to learn how to write on *paper*. Likewise, flashcards (tables of multiplication and such) were also hand written on paper. Imagine that!

*paper*"?? If only we had paper. I had to use slate and chalk, and that was luxury at a time when most people were chiselling essays into rocks.

Chinese people wouldn't pay for it though, they would try to download it for free.

I think the biggest issue is Chinese children learn to write pinyin before they even write characters, so they are already familiar with English letters.

I actually think the concept of "flash cards" would be a big hit here; not many students I have met have ever heard of the concept, although granted I am in a rural area.

I possibly could be qualified as a chinese and never thought about using skritter for free.

The app is already free. Chinese people who can afford an iPhone surely also have a UnionPay card. A lot of Chinese people who want to get ahead in life want to learn English and Skritter could offer them an easy and fun way to learn all that pesky vocabulary.

We don't aim on using Skritter to teach English for the same reason we wouldn't expand to any other language: learning the characters is trivial compared to Chinese or Japanese. In Japanese for example, learning hiragana and katakana take a month or two, and they're 48 characters each or so, and you use all of them repeatedly and constantly so you don't need a separate system to remind you of less frequently used characters lest you forget them. An app would help but it's not nearly as necessary or valuable as Skritter for Chinese or Japanese, where learning the characters takes years of work. Also the point about keeping a narrow focus is important. And finally, the system is optimized for Kanji and Hanzi. It would have to be redone to accommodate other scripts, particularly more cursive ones.