I would like to try to build up my reading capabilities for some new vocabulary and build up the writing later.

If I deselect "writing" in the options for the app, and add new vocabulary - what will happen later when I re-select "writing": Will the writing for the characters/list entries I already studied still be added, or will Skritter consider those items already finished? I would prefer for them to be added at that point, as I said, I just want to focus on the reading temporarily.

Interesting question Christian.

Do you find your writting helps your reading ability though?

I believe learning to write each character dramatically improves reading ability, there is something about writing them that kind of sticks them in your head.

I agree with 胡安马林. I have found that my comprehension has sky rocketed since I have been testing my writing skills on Skritter.

You get a choice when readd "writing" whether want it to apply going forward only or for words already studied. That is, you can add writing parts later no problem.

@Christian as I recall Skritter gives you a choice when you add back writing.

I prefer to manage this through three lists. I have lists that are for everything and I have lists that are for just writing and lists for everything but writing.

BTW- though most people (and especially Skritter) say "writing" is the right way to learn, it doesn't seem to work for me. I have zero interest in having an ability to hand write characters, so I only learn to write a few out of interest. I currently know 1600 characters, but can only write 300 characters. This seems to work well for me: when I was learning to write the process just seemed so much slower to add words to my vocab.

For me, it was born out of necessity since I landed in China (for work) without being able to speak a word and wanted to learn. So, I needed to know as much useful information as possible. I even went pinyin only for the first year and that was a great option for a survivalist.

^ I like your strategy Mark! I'm in the same boat as you: my speaking ability is well within the 4000 character range, but my writing is playing huge catchup from 2 years of neglect.

I think writing is probably the hardest part of Chinese to master (if I was to categorize learning into 4 different sections: writing, reading, speaking, and listening). Everyone is different, but I expect learning to write by hand to be slow, mostly because the practise is not always readilly avaliable. I listen and speak more Chinese in a day than I write in a month (and I try to put in at least two hours of skrittering everyday) I asked myself a question awhile ago: how much do we HONESTLY handwrite in our native langauges everyday? Certainly we all spend more time listening, speaking, and perhaps TYPING in our 母語‘S than handwriting. So to me it seems normal that writing would be a slower area to master . There are benefits to learning to write by hand though:

I did find a huge leap in my reading ability when I did start to handwrite, which is why I encourage people to learn to write if they want to become fluent readers. Everyone is different, I've never just focused on reading personally, and I personally kick myself in the pants for not learning how to write when I started learning Chinese 2 years ago.

Anyway I'm not sure what I am trying to say with this post-- good luck? It gets easier?

In all honesty if you want to use Skritter to only learn to read, then why not use Anki?

Be well!

勇氣