My question/comment might be slightly similar to what has been mentioned before but I noticed that while I was preparing for the HSK3, I have studied the characters and their meaning only. I didn't use any books really (normally I use NPCR2 and Conversational Chinese 301) and I now I noticed that I obviously cannot really use this words on a daily basis. I don't know how they function in context. Have you ever experienced the same? I decided that from now on I will only work with the books and work on the characters for each chapter rather than simply working on the new HSK4 list. Or do you guys have other experiences? I am really looking forward to the sample sentences function in the ipad/iphone version. Cheers!

Yes, whenever you can, study things that you have some context for outside of Skritter. You'll learn them much faster when you have some idea of how they're used. You can learn them in Skritter without knowing that, but it'll be slower, and you'll still have to learn how to use them, too.

The example sentences can help with this if you take the time to use them in Skritter. I'm looking forward to getting them in the iOS app as well.

Unprovincial, I am curious. you say you prepared for the hsk this way. could you tell me what your result was. did you pass hsk-3 with this kind of preparation?

learninglife j.h.,
I haven't received the results yet. Somehow it takes one month for them to process everything. I will keep you posted though.
Generally, I cannot recommend it as I had lots of difficulties with understanding the dialogues even though I understood most of the words. I know it's tempting to kinda push all the characters in your brain but it didn't work for me not having much context available to support my learning.

@ Unprovincial

Learning another language takes time. You might think you understood most of the words but it's only at a superficial level. Common words in English -- have, for example -- can have over 40 different meanings depending on the context (there are 40 definitions for the word "have" in my dictionary). The same is true with Chinese.

Skritter helps chunk a lot of information. It's only the first step, though. You have to actually use what you learn over and over again to consolidate it.

yes, that is what i thought. with what you said I dont expect that you will pass the hsk-3.

learning chinese without con-text is possible on a low level - like learning all the fruits and vegetable names. that makes sense.
but when it comes to sentence structures you are lost with only single words.

i am in the excellent situation that i can live and study in china/beijing, so the learning environment is very good.
but I still have to come here to skritter to do my 2 hours every day. otherwise I know my reading and writing will not develop.

why dont you get a good textbook (like SPEED UP CHNESE, which we use at university) and work with it?

@ learninglife j.h.

True, I made much more progress as well when I was in Beijing two years ago, but at that time I wasn't as enthusiastic as I'm now about the language as I was about to go to Tokyo.

I have actually used textbooks (NPCR2 and Conversational Chinese 301) and after having noticed that I'm struggling now, I will go back to using them.