Why is everyone enamored with explaining their Skritter exploits with math? Are you all secretly mathematicians?

Numbers do not explain, much less capture, the nuance inherent in language.

As an example, using numbers, the English word `have` has 38 different definitions in my dictionary. The word `got` has 63.

Chinese is the same way: many words or characters have multiple meanings depending on the context. By bragging about how many characters or words you have `remembered` you only show you have a superficial understanding.

Caveat: I have the vocabulary of a small child in Japanese.

Someone who can only recognize and write 1 character is undoubtably inferior in Chinese *written language abilities* than someone who can recognize and write 5000 characters. We're all eager to place ourselves somewhere on that line between ignorant and fluent, most frequently with the aim of self motivation and congratulation at progress made. I don't see why that bothers you.

Of course it says nothing about *spoken competence*. But neither do many tests such as the TOEFL which nonetheless are a hugely important benchmark to many language students.

Where do you see people bragging? I haven't see many people doing that here, let alone everyone like you seemed to have claimed in your post.

Anyway, even if people do do that, it does depend on the context. Since this is the Skritter forum, people "bragging" about how many words they know might actually just be saying "Look what Skritter has helped me achieve, I've learned this many vocab words with this program."

I agree that vocabulary isn't everything, but it is an extremely important aspect of learning a language, and someone who knows 5,000 characters has certainly achieved something.

Agreed. To learn a language you shouldn't compete with others, but only compete with yourself. So if you go from knowing 1000 to 2000 characters, you can definitely say you have improved. As you read chinese books and talk to the chinese, you will find deeper meaning in these characters you have acquired.

Also, I am a Mathematician, thats my job and I am not secretive about it at all. Please note that knowing a certain number of characters has nothing to do with mathematics. Perhaps you could use 'arithmetic', or even just 'counting, but not mathematics. Note that many words have multiple meanings depending on the context, however mathematics is not correct in this context ;)

icebear is correct. It is a motivator. It feels great if you learn 25 new characters on any given day when you have set a daily goal of 15. Conversely, less so when you get to learn only 10 or less. The more characters I learn, the more I can simply read what my wife writes to me in QQ and the less time I waste in Google Translate. I, for one, will be happy when I will be able to read the 4000 most common characters. It will greatly facilitate communication in writing, reading and vocabulary acquisition.

It's true that the number of characters one knows doesn't reflect one's grasp of nuances in the language, but it's a good way to measure progress while using skritter.

lol...

I enjoyed reading the responses. I agree with most, too. I did not mean it to be read in a negative way nor did I mean to only refer to this forum. Skritter itself, for example, has a lot of statistical tools built in that people can use. There is a lot of sophisticated math involved whether people acknowledge it or not.

@ 戴德辉

When I see big numbers being thrown around I instantly think of bragging. That is my perception, obviously. I am a fan of minimalism.

@ triliu

I was using the word math in a broader sense. It is not just counting either. Skritter uses algorithms to figure out when to prompt you with words.

Algorithms and statistics and counting -- last time I checked -- all fall under the umbrella term of mathematics; or at least for me. You are the expert, though, so maybe you could clarify.

I was partially right: I found at least one mathematician! I knew there had to be some overlap.

I think in comparison many mathematicians or people who are good at math have an interest in Chinese characters, and so you might find quite a few of them here, and thus there will be more talking about numbers and such:)
My dad is a mathematician and shows an elevated interest in Chinese characters, just as 'nerds' in general do. Not the correct word but you know what I mean.

But I haven't seen 'everyone' bragging up about their numbers, as mentioned before I think most ppl use it as a source of motivation and confirmation. I only start doing that now actually, realizing I should be further than where I am right now, and luckily the app adds motivation, ugh...

Btw: there is a big correlation with your abilities in Maths and in Languages. Mathematics is, for the biggest part, also a language.

Regarding mathematics I came to think about an inspiring(?) book I can recommend: http://simonsingh.net/books/fermats-last-theorem/the-book/

:)

I have been studying Chinese for less than two years and already know just over 800 characters!!!! Woooooo! Yeah! Everyone come see how great I am!! /sarcasm

paddy665, you learned 852 characters in a mere 35 Skritter hours. It has taken me 55 Skritter hours and 5 months to learn 666 characters:

http://i46.tinypic.com/sy1653.png

I wouldn't mind borrowing your brain for a while.

@Paddy665 and @范博涵, I suspect how those hours are distributed probably makes a big difference.

I suspect, but can't prove, that days where I accumulate an hour of usage in 3-5min segments spread out through the day are much more effective than when I sit down and work for an hour in one block.

This is one of the reasons why I'm so happy about the app finally being released :)

The essence of the algorithms is an important thing to understand for the keen skritterer. The thing is, its ability to rate you is defined a lot by yourself, and how you rate your performance (for the app: using forgot, so-so, got it, and easy). Lets say you define:

forgot: Can't remember at all
so-so: Can remember some
got it: Lucky guess
easy: Can write it from memory

Then the algorithms with analyze your data and say you have learned a character once you can 'lucky guess' it quite often, and can write it from memory sometimes. Lets make things harder. Lets say you define:

forgot: Can remember some
so-so: Lucky guess
got it: Can write it from memory
easy: I can use the word in a sentence

Then the algorithms with analyze your data and say you have learned a character once you 'Can write it from memory' it quite often, and can use it in a sentence sometimes. Challenge:

forgot: Lucky guess
so-so: Can write it from memory
got it: I can use the word in a sentence
easy: Can use it fluently and correctly when talking to a Chinese.

What do you guys think of this? I find it helpful to think like this, do you?

I agree with everything but with grading how well you can write a word on how well you can use it in a sentence. You will end up getting more and more writing practice and you still wont be closer to using it in a sentence.

Unfortunately Skritter can not help you with using words in sentences (at this stage hopefully).

You will waste your time if you try to incorporate it in this way into the grading.

I use the following grading (more or less):

forgot: incorrect writing, pinyin and tone
so-so: correct writing and pinyin but incorrect tone
got it: correct writing, pinyin and tone, with almost instant recognition
easy: instant recognition with full knowledge of all of the character's properties, including different meanings

Regarding spreading out your workload: I find I can learn and remember the most when I Skritter for half an hour in the morning, when the mind is still fresh (this takes care of most if not all pending reviews), an hour during lunch (a lot less effective than that first half hour) and another hour or two in the evening. If I have had enough sleep, I can so-so learn up to 25 new characters a day.

Numbers is just one way of measuring accomplishments. As you can see from my user name I set a goal for myself that helps me keep focused...It's just one way of working with the language....

@范博涵 My Skritter stats are not accurate, I have been studying Chinese for almost 2 years now in a Chinese university here in sichuan and I only started using Skritter in March 2012.

So when I started using skritter there were a ton of characters that I already knew from class and other study.

So please don't compare yourself to me, especially since I live in China and so I see Chinese characters every day and I speak Chinese every day. You don't have that learning environment in Ireland.

:)

I see on Nick's tweet that he averages "15 characters in the last three days. Reviews 1426 items and hits 95% retention" in maintaining our obsession with numbers :) what kind of settings does that indicate?

I ask because my Skritter updates on Facebook from the iPhone app show 346 words studied, 152 learnt and 128 added all in 26 minutes with a retention of 88.2. Now, I'm all for having a higher retention and covering less words but I've already got settings enables to add words slowly, aiming for 95% rentention. Also, I find it hard to believe I'm chalking up stats like that!

Someone able to explain how the settings affect the number of words and retention or maybe explain how the app thinks I'm making such remarkably unbelievable progress?

That's Jake's progress, and yeah, he's pro.

When you first get going with Skritter, it often adds a ton of characters and words quickly, which you can't always have a high retention rate on. As you get more words into the system, it tends to even out.

Are these total items learned and added, or just one particular class of item (such as word writings)?

Those are my overall numbers. Is it actually possible to cover do many words in an avg 30 min session?

It's telling you how many items are covered, actually. So if you studied the writing of 你好, it would give you three reviews: one for 你好-writing, one for 你-writing, and one for 好-writing.