I Skritter quite often and love to check my Progress on the Progress Viewer. However, I'm a bit confused on the breakdown of it.

It breaks down both Characters and Words into reading, writing, definition, and tone. Perhaps there could be a link that shows a definition of each? I'm not sure of the difference between the two.

It's actually a good point, since in reality there is no difference between the two.

However, I guess it's there because people like to say things like "I know 2000 characters".

And there is also the fact that (I'm not 100% certain of the numbers) 90% of Chinese text is made up of about 3000 characters, so it's valuable to know.

Firstly, the difference between words and characters is that words are compounds (of two or more characters), and characters are just individual hanzi. (Although if you study a word with a new character in it, the number of characters you know will increase by one).

As for writing/tone/definition/reading, these are the different ways Skritter tests you on characters and words. (Eg, when it asks you to write, or when it asks you to put the tone in, or check to see if you know the definition....).

If you don't want to do all the prompts, you can disable some of them too. I personally just use writing/tone prompts.

inkubus: I guess that's true, although it is possible that you know 90% (or even 100%) of the characters and still have no idea what is written. I often come across new words where I know the characters but don't understand the meaning, and it is often impossible to guess the meaning.

Also the idea that when you know the first 3000 characters you are going to be able to read Chinese is misleading and I guess only told to beginners to make Chinese sound simpler than it really is.

Byzanti: So characters aren't words? How about 给 for example, seems like a word to me.

Also some characters are also never used on their own (like 蝴 and 蝶, never used separately but together 蝴蝶）， so saying you know the characters for these words is kind've meaningless if you think about it.

I really think the divide used here between characters and words confuses and is not helpful. There is a good book which talks about this called The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy by John DeFrancis.

Antimacassar: I think the distinction is helpful enough for Skritter. It might be better to go through each character individually asking "is this generally used as a word in itself", but that seems like a painful task with no clear line anyway.

Incidentally, that's not quite true for 蝴. Have a look at this thread, particularly pts's post: http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=82299186

Byzanti: hmm...I think actually the post u cite actually proves my point (I assumed we were referring to modern Chinese...)

Just saw this...蝶泳...so i guess i should put my hands up and say wtf do i know!?

For Skritter's purposes, a character is a single character, and a word is a compound of characters. A lot of the "words" on Skritter are actually phrases or proper names, maybe even some entire sentences, but they are listed as "words" in the progress page. Likewise, a lot of characters can be used as words on their own, but they only show up as "characters" on the progress page, not as words.

I think I'll add a FAQ entry detailing the difference between words and characters, as Skritter defines them.

Awesome.