**This is on for the iPhone app - I don't know if the issue exists on the website

I'm having issues with new words being added too fast, regardless of speed setting. It seems to me that "new words" might be triggered whenever I confirm that I know the definition or tones, even if I don't know the writing. For me, this is a major problem, since I can read much, much more than I can write. An example of my problem comes in a sequence something like the following:

-I set the add vocab speed to "slow" (I've been switching back to "manual only" whenever I get flooded with new words).

-A new word is added and I mark the writing as "not yet"

-The definition or tone comes up for the same word and since my reading is way better than my writing I already know it and mark it as "easy"

-A new word is added

This process continues resulting in 10's of new words being added in only a few minutes, before I have the opportunity to learn how to write even the first of the newly added words.

Additionally, I suspect the problem may be even worse. I believe simply confirming that you know definitions/writings/tones for *already learned* characters and words also triggers new words to be added. Sometimes I'll get a string of already learned words right after a new word is added. With nearly every press of "easy" or "got it" a new word will be added, though I've made no progress on writing one of the new words.

One more piece of information that might be helpful is that when I was learning the kanxi radicals, which I am not very familiar with in writing, definition, or tone, my new words were often completely unknown to me. During that time, I was marking definitions, tones, and writings mostly as "not yet" and "so-so." Normal vocab adding speed was just right and I didn't have the same problem that I described above.

Lastly, I'm having issues with words not being reviewed in a timely manner. Just before writing this post, I had a word that I hadn't seen in 10+ days, was 227% overdue, and had a low success rate come up for review. I had forgotten I had even learned the word. This is a somewhat common occurrence. What makes it worse is that I'll have spent 30 minutes to an hour being made to review over and over again words that I know very, very - words that also have a very small percent due rate.

That's all for my complaining :) Besides the issues I've described, I'm otherwise rather pleased with the app. I discovered the site about 2 years ago and saw in it great potential for motivating me to learn to write chinese characters. Using a mouse got old fast and I quit for a long time. About 6 months ago I thought I'd get a bamboo pad and I'd be ready to dive back in, but the thing just didn't do it for me. Now, with the release of the iOS app, skritter's potential to get me to learn how to write chinese characters has been realized :)

As I understand it, how you grade newly added words does not affect the rate at which subsequent words are added. Depending on the speed you've selected, newly added words will add because you are at the end or near the end of your current review queue. So, if you want to add less, either stop studying once you feel you've had enough for the day, or else if you want to overpractice, turn on manual adding.

The 227% overdue word is another kettle of fish...

I would also argue that the mechanism for adding new words should not be just adding them on a time basis. Some words take longer than others for a user to get properly oriented. Having the ability to have only X amount of new cards in your queue makes a lot of sense to me. I thought Skritter works this way but maybe I am wrong.

As for adding cards, my problem sounds related to Ouyang's issue.

Using my iPhone, I was working through a "big list", maybe about 30 different sections. Things seemed to be normal and as expected, with words being added automatically every so often. Definitions shown, and I would respond by writing the character.

Then for some reason, all the remaining words were just added without the opportunity to even learn the words (about 150 in my case). Maybe I hit some wrong button on the interface. Not sure.

1) Any idea what might have happened?
2) Any way to go back and make the characters in the list as "un-added" ?

I encountered something similar, with the app adding 40% of HSK 4 within a very short period. My daily needed reviews shot up to 1000+. Became unmanageable :/

I reverted to manual add

@OP

A quote from the Skritter FAQ:

"Each item's scheduling can be affected when you review other parts for its word. If you study the writing for 先生, then if the reading and definition are also due, they will be pushed back into the future somewhat, so that the reviews don't interfere with each other. After all, if you just saw the details for 先生 two minutes ago, it would be too easy to remember them if you got its definition prompt now. So you might see the definition prompt a little later, or the next day, depending on how the length of the current interval. A consequence of this can be that you don't even see the reading or definition parts of a word for days after adding it to My Words, until you've started to remember the writing part. We think this is a good thing."

So maybe if you get the writing wrong, it doesn't want to show you another part of the same word, so it adds another.

I believe this is an issue specific to the app, and related to syncing. The app adds a word, succeeds, tries to get the word from the server, fails for some reason, and then tries to do this again. The next version has better handling for this case, and will help us identify further issues with syncing, and make it clearer when these issues happen and why they happen.

Could you try studying on the website for a while, and see if the adding is more agreeable? Then we can confirm that it's app-specific.

For the items that aren't showing up properly, you might want to try clearing your data on the app and re-downloading your account data. It sounds like there may be data missing.

@ecurran: I fixed your list, I think you're seeing the same problem as ouyang.

I'll be busy with work over the next few days, so I don't really have time to see if the issue exists on the website, but when I'm free later in the week I'll check it out. I don't recall ever running into this problem on the website, though.