Hi,

I was wondering if there are lists that help you learn both? That is when characters are written differently, they will teach you both following each other?

Such as if the list comes to the character 嗎 , the next character you would learn would be the simplified equivalent 吗 and there would be a short notice stating that they are the equivalent of each other just traditional or simplified.

Cheers,

If you go into your settings you can specify that you want to learn both and Skritter will give you both regardless of how the list was created (with simplified or traditional characters). They don't always come after one another but they are color coded differently (yellow for simplified, red for traditional) to let you know which type of character you are learning.

joshwhitson13, thank you for your quick reply.

I have that settings in place already, but I was more specifically interested to learn both at the same time with the simplified/traditional characters following each other.

@Mskritter, how many lists do you have activated? If you have adding set to "both", it should already be working roughly as you're describing, but if you have multiple lists activated, or have items added through the Queue, the simplified and traditional won't necessarily be added one after the other because the system rotates which lists it adds from.

Even if you're only adding from one list, and the simplified/traditional variants are added one after another, you won't necessarily practice them one after another because other reviews might fall in between them. And after the first time, their schedules will drift apart anyway, as they get scheduled independently.

As for seeing the simplified version of traditional and vice versa, you can see that (in all its complexity) in the magnifying glass popup.

James

@jww1066

Thank you for your in-depth answer.


The magnifying glass trick is a big step towards to what I was looking for. I will use that step. Thank you.

I never had the two same characters come next to each other showing traditional/simplified versions.

There could be in the future an option to always have the two sets follow each other, or a small button to switch between the two characters when learning/testing. I guess there aren't too many users who are looking for this?

On a separate question, if have both Traditional/Simplified chosen as to show up and I am studying the HSK 1 list, will I be taught the complete HSK 1 list in Traditional and Simplified characters?

Yes, if you have it set to "both" and you go through a list of simplified characters it will add the traditionals as well. (Note that the Queue is different, confusingly.) I don't know much about the HSK but I would assume since it's a PRC thing that the test is given in simplified, no?

I would have to think about the idea of having the two variants come together. On the one hand I see what you mean, that it would help with learning the connections between the two, but on the other hand you can see that connection in the hourglass popup, and in many cases the differences are regular. Are you suggesting that they would *always* come together, or just the first time they were introduced?

James

I think you can have both, I am not sure, I haven't decided which tests I will take as I might take a Taiwanese test. It is good to hear it will cover both sets completely.

I think it should not be very difficult to have them linked but I am not sure things under the hood are set up (programmed).

The simplest for the user would be that when he gets to learn/write a character that has different writing (traditional vs simplified) , he would be able to toggle between different traditional/simplified.

I think it is best to let the user decide if there should be short of 'logical' pairing of traditional/simplified characters. The user could tick a box if he wants to have the characters only follow each other initially, if they should always follow each other, or by 'default' no connection at all.

While this isn't in the system, I will use the hour glass as a solution.

Yes, the only time this has caused a problem for me has been with the Heisig lists, which have a specific order for simplified and a different order (and maybe even a different set of characters) for traditional. Otherwise I always leave it on "both" and am happy.

James

That is good, you are studying for a specific test as well or just studying to learn the language?

Fingers crossed skritter implements what I want hahaha

Hahaha no I'm just a language addict. Maybe I'll eventually take the HSK but my real goal is fluency (speaking and writing).

That's really cool.

Learning any other languages as well?

Yeah, Spanish, Russian and Portuguese. :P

Nice choice of languages! Any plans for German/French?

I know some Spanish to read www.Marca.com / www.As.com

How many people are you able to communicate with English/Spanish/Portuguese/Russian/Chinese? Must be a lot!!

I didn't say I was able to communicate in them yet. ;) My Spanish is pretty good and my Portuguese is O.K., but my Russian and Chinese are still terrible. I figure between Mandarin, Spanish, and English that's already around 2 billion people or more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

Maybe I'll eventually study French or German. I see them as less of a priority as all the French and German speakers I run into here in New York City seem to speak fluent English. (It's the Dutch problem: why would anyone study Dutch when the Dutch speak so many other languages?)

As for soccer, unfortunately I don't speak that language. :)

James

Impressive and your goals are quite impressive to be added to your already great linguistic resumé.

The Routledge Course in Modern Mandarin Chinese
vs
New Practical Chinese Reader?

I am not too sure if you mean you are stating that you are American or if you are stating that you are British by that...as soccer is an old English English word for modern European football but which is now called football. =/ =)

No, I'm American, I just meant that I don't know anything about soccer.

I see. British accents can be sometimes difficult to understand, especially up north =)

The Routledge Course in Modern Mandarin Chinese
vs
New Practical Chinese Reader?

Do you use any grammar books?

The Routledge Course in Modern Mandarin Chinese looks great. What is your experience?

I've only used NPCR, so I can't judge. I think other users have tried a wider variety of books than I have.

Is the NPCR good?

Not to be flippant, but that really depends on what you need. If you're teaching yourself you probably know your priorities pretty well. I like the NPCR because it has audio, dialogues, characters, and pinyin. It also includes a good amount of grammatical background.

I know what I want, but it isn't easy for me to gauge which books are actually good and able to provide a complete teaching of grammar/pronunciation/character understanding or if I should invest in separate books for separate tasks but I think I will read the amazon.com reviews.

Cheers

If you create a new thread and ask people, I'm sure you'll get a lot of input. There are lots of users who are much more knowledgeable than me.