I find this interesting.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Easily_confused_Chinese_characters

Excerpt:

Components

Certain strokes do not appear, or do not often appear, as a distinct character, but are used as a component in other characters.
氵 冫

Notes: 3 strokes on first, 2 strokes on second.

Both are widely used as radicals – Index:Chinese radical/水 and Index:Chinese radical/冫 – but 氵 (from 水 (“water”)) is much more commonly used, being one of the most used radicals.

Interesting yes, but only confusing if you start learning by reading it. Only very few are difficult to remember in my experience.

Interesting. I was asked to write a character on paper recently that I thought I knew and then realized that I could only write 90% of it. For me, it's harder to write them in real life then on Skritter, simply because I guess I used to kinda semi-guess some of them.

The problem is slightly compounded because even with raw swigs on, Skritter will sometimes recognize the stroke as correct even though it's wrong. For example sometimes I write 仿 as 防 but Skritter would accept it. Also some characters are really fiddly to draw and easily confuse. For example the last part of 涅 I used to draw a 工, then recently realized it's a 土 (Skritter accepts a 工 though). I guess it's hard for Skritter to distinguish this and so relies on the user to check it after it's marked as correct, in case of this eventuality.

Basically I think the best way is to imagine how the character is drawn before you write anything, and then, even if you get a tiny part wrong, mark it as wrong. Another example is 荒 , the seventh stroke of which I thought had a 点 like as in 统.

I imagine Chinese people also have this problem though. Also, that by comparing two characters that are easily confused side by side it might actually make it more confusing.

I record each character in Microsoft Pinyin and enlarge the font of the character and make it bold so I can clearly see.

I wonder what long term effect pinyin codes and cell phones /computers will have on the literacy of the Chinese population and their "penmanship" or calligraphy. Surely it will gradually deteriorate.

Also, Internet on-line conversation in chat rooms and social networks will spawn some kind of text-speak that spans various regional dialects.

In the 1970s I taught myself to get by fairly well in conversational Greek and Russian and the alphabets are so phonetic and regular that in a week or two you can pronounce any word reasonably correctly.

Also, pinyin input methods and computer search aids will perhaps cause the dictionary/lexical searching skills of the average student to deteriorate.

As a beginner, I enjoy supplementing my practice with http://www.nciku.com/ ... I use the magnifying glass in Skritter to find the word in Yellow Bridge, study the animation of the stroke order, and then practice a few times in http://www.nciku.com/ . The fine lines of the mouse strokes help one to focus on the actual structure of the character and nciku seems to sense stroke order and use that as one of the arguments in its search.

Here's three that have confused me before:

怡 恰

轶 软

殷 毅

Need to pay attention to distinguish them.