Is there a way to hide the English definition while practicing tones? I often inadvertently cheat on Tone reviews because I see the English out of the corner of my eye and I get the tone that way, rather than by looking at the character and trying to remember the way I'd have to if I were seeing it in the wild.

I didn't see an option in the settings panel, and I don't know how hard it would be to implement if it's not there. Naturally you can't hide the English for writing reviews, you'd have no idea what you were supposed to write. But it'd be really nice for Tone practice.

I requested this too, a while back.

I think it would be a great idea. Up until now, I usually come up with some kind of pop-up and then position the pop-up where the definitions are. It's a huge inconvenience.

Being able to see the English definitions is like cheating

I still have it on my list to try out, but haven't gotten to it yet. If you want to try out an approximation to this personally and don't mind doing a little bit of hacking, it's not too hard to implement a custom CSS rule for the Skritter study page to make the definitions almost white and hard to accidentally read:

#word_defn .value { color: #eee; }

There's a lot of ways to add custom CSS, depending on which browser you use; depending on your technical abilities, it might be worth trying out. Otherwise, I'll eventually get around to testing out this option and seeing if it's better.

I've put it in, if you:
- have enabled alpha features
- have enabled hide pinyin
- are doing a tone prompt by itself, not combined with a writing prompt

It currently doesn't remember if you looked at the definition when switching between prompts; I figure I'll add that if we like it this way better. What do you guys think--is it as good as you thought? Other users: which way do you prefer?

I see no problem in associating definition with tone. Who says the tone must be associated with just the characters? The more help to remember pronunciation the better.

It's no big deal, but I'd rather have the link to the subject matter.

@Byzanti There's nothing wrong with associating tones with definitions, as long as the associations are based on memory and not looking over to the side to peak at the definition and then recalling the character's tone.

@ Nick I just turned on alpha features to test this new feature out and I LOVE IT !!!!!!!!!!

Bohan: if there's nothing wrong with associating tones with definitions, what is wrong with looking at the definition?

@ Byzanti hey mate, I wrote in my last comment to you that "There's nothing wrong with associating tones with definitions, as long as the associations are based on memory..." .

The problem with peeking at the definitions is that you won't be able to do that when you read a book, newspaper, movie subtitle, etc.

I just noticed that I misspelled "peek" in the previous comment. How careless of me

Isn't the most important time you need to remember the tone when speaking the word though?

I'm not raising an argument for the sake of it, it's just I'm not not convinced this is thought through. Personally, I use as many associations (definition/pictures, example sentences) as I can to answer a prompt, because each of those hints is another association with the character/tone.

Initially I found I couldn't recall which word Skritter was wanting, for example. When I put a picture/example sentence/noticeable definition in there, my recall shot up. Equally, if I kept on getting a word/character wrong, by putting, say, a picture there I remembered that I had been getting it wrong, and started getting it right. In the short term, that might be due to a trigger that I would not have in real life, but then the correct version becomes ingrained anyway.

If you remove the definition then it becomes harder to notice the words that repeatedly have problems, and it's going to be harder to correct them.

Now, given how few prompts are tone only, as I said, and the fact that I can hit the show button, it's not a huge deal, but it would be faster the original way, and besides, I think the logic is screwed. You're thinking "well, when I see it written down, I wont know the tone!", but that's got bugger all real word application. My experience is that the more associations you've got, the better.

@Byzanti it appears we're just going to have to agree to disagree

I like associating the definition with the tone reviews. It's extra practice for when I have to put it all together when reviewing reading.

You're already required to recall the tone without the definition when typing the pinyin using reading practice anyways.

It doesn't seem well thought out to make you recall the tone in two identical scenarios. The other way, to me, is what really distinguished tone practice from reading practice.

I vote it be changed back or made an option.

I wouldn't mind in the least if it were an option, but I definitely think that it should at least be that, and not changed back to definitions showing without a way to make them not appear.


Here is an example of why it's important to be able to recall tones without the aid of English translations :

Imagine going to a restaurant that doesn't have menus with English. I've seen lots of these in China and Taiwan. When ordering food, it would be nice to avoid confusing the server , which would require being able to read the names of dishes from the menu out loud.
I realize that in this scenario, people can just point at dishes on the menu, but I think that a person who studies Chinese should be able to order food without doing that. Pointing at dishes on the menu is something that tourists who can't speak Chinese do

From the arguments given so far, it seems to me like what you want from the tone prompts should be sought in the reading prompts instead. I've just made it so that you can skip the typing and use grading buttons on those prompts instead, if you like, which should make them more accessible (along with the temporary parts study). I'll make a blog post about it soon.

Bohan, dbkluck: do you want to try out some reading prompts and see how they suit you?

it's asking me to type in the pinyin.

I've tried out practicing "reading practice" before, but I don't like it.

I'd really like to just study tones, in the "tone practice" section.

Allowing users to have the option of one or the other would be the best solution

@Bohan, I'm still a bit confused at why you'd prefer tones practice to show the definition, when reading practice forces you to know the tone without the definition already. Perhaps I'm not understanding something correctly though.

You mentioned the scenario of being in a restaurant without English menu's and wanting to read the characters correctly. Only practicing the tones isn't going to allow you to do that. I can't go into a restaurant and just say, "second tone, fourth tone, fourth tone". I have to also have to know the pinyin.

To me this is completely covered in the reading section. It requires you to recall the pinyin and tone, entirely based on the characters (no other help given). That is exactly what you wanted to do in the restaurant scenario.

Having the definition displayed helps associate the tone and characters meaning. That way not only will you be able to say it, you might even be able to guess what it is. Though in the case of food names it might be impossible unless someone specifically explains it to you.

@孟志书 First off, I prefer the tone practice to NOT show the definition ( I just want that to be clear).

One reason I that I don't even do reading practice on Skritter is I don't like typing in pinyin. I'm sure that this is a feature on Skritter that lots of users use and love, but I don't like it. When I'm not doing writing practice on Skritter, I like to just go through a long list of characters and words and put in the tone.

What this really boils down to is two different styles of learning Chinese. The style that I use is to minimize the dependence of the native language (in this case, English). The contrasting style is the "association style", in which people constantly code-switch in their heads while speaking/reading Chinese. So for example: a person using the "association style" might see a word like 校長　and then translate it in their minds as "dean/principal/head-master", whereas in the other style a person might not use any words to imagine what 校長　is.

I think you've made your request quite clear, though I must admit I disagree with the logic behind it. Might have to resort the agree to disagree statement you made above.

Associations are used in the beginning stages until they become instinctive and natural. For example, I forget most of the mnemonics I learned at first to help me with characters and now just remember the characters.

Even by imagining what a 校长 is there is still an association being made. First you had to know what a principal is by there position in society, then you can associate that word with it position. I already know what it is in English so why not just use that to help me get started?

Though I can understand that if you have "reading" mode disabled you might want not to display the definition. But then I'll say, if you really want to be able to read over a menu quickly and easily then reading mode will help you accomplish this more than tone reviews.

I personally use reading practice and don't see the point in tone practice any more. If you don't like typing in reading practice, you can say the word aloud, click "show" to see if you got it right, and grade yourself. But as the saying goes in Spanish, de gustos y colores han escrito los autores.

I think I'm going to change it back to the way it was, where definitions are shown for tone practice, since for most users the reading practice will serve as a better practice for character -> sound.

Bohan, I'll leave it on this way for your account for now. I won't promise to support it if I want to change that code, but I don't anticipate changing it any time soon.