I dropped my retention rate, which has helped.

There are many ways to study but this is what works for me:

- Stick to high frequency words.

- Use the words in context as much as possible. It is very much harder to learn anything without context.

- It will be faster to learn by time. The more your master, the more you will see that those characters
are included as sound parts in other characters etc. This leads to less time needed to spend on new items.

- Do not add to much. The brain is not capable of handling unlimited amount of new information at the same time. For the time I have for this that is around 3 characters per day

- Grade your self strictly. Try to avoid so-so grading. Either you do know it or you don't. If you don't you will soon have it back for a new review and reinforce what your learn.

- Avoid adding words that you stumble upon unless you are sure that it is a frequently used word and you do have context to it. It is sort of waste of time in the beginning to learn all the worlds capital cities or the words for obscure sports.

- Don't be afraid of banning words that is of less importance or just simple hard to learn. You can always un-ban them later.

- Use your Chinese! Regardless how little you do know you can read some of the simple texts etc. This gives repetition and context and really helps remembering them.

- Spread our your reviews over the day. Too long time in a row is at least for me less productive than several smaller sessions. I learn much better if I study before bed time.

- Live a Chinese life. Listen to Chinese music, watch Chinese news or movies, think in Chinese. All helps. I often have Chinese TV and radio on in the background when working etc just to get used to the sound and feel of the language.

- Get on-line Chinese friends and practice.

- Study words rather than characters.

- Use a good book to study. Then you do get the words explained, get context, repetition etc.

- Take the time to really learn old stuff before you do go on with new ones. Your reviews will increase if you have to many old words that you are forgetting and mark as so-so. My rule of thumb is to mark them strictly and try to keep my retention rate above 92%. If i have better retention i add some more, if I drop i keep on reviewing till I am above again. I actually have a second account (for teaching) where i try to be above 95 and that works even better for me. Note, this is my personal preferences. I know that from an efficiency point it is better to hover around 90%. I however think that better retention equals better confidence when i read and that leads to higher reading pleasure and better result, for me.

90 minutes Skritter time is for me only about 2 hours real time - and that's with breaks, etc. How are you able to stretch 90 minutes of Skritter time to 4-5 hours real time?

My personal suggestion is to try to spend your time more efficiently. Study for more, but shorter sessions each day. This will be better for your learning and it will be easier to keep your mind from wandering if you study more intensely like this.

Personally, checking parts of speech, looking up etymology, writing and checking mnemonics are all a waste of time. I'm sure many will disagree with me, but I personally end up playing around and not really learning. Whatever benefit these have is outweighed by the benefit of doing more reviews.

Think about it: if you force yourself to be disciplined, you'll have more time for Chinese *and* more time for other things. There is no benefit to studying inefficiently.

"Learning Chinese is taking forever."

Yep, there's no way around this. Accept it or turn back now!