1. Does it really make sense to type pinyin? I mean there are only a few sounds in Chinese and there's no such thing as orthography you would have to practice, like in Spanish or German. So it would be much faster to say the sound out loud (or just in your head) and then listen to the sound, check the pinyin and grade yourself, withouth losing any learning effect. Is there a fast way to do it like this already? Show->Correct->Next is one click more than necessary...
2. I'm through the writing part of my characters and activated "Reading" under language settings and practice settings, but I can't add anything and nothing gets added automatically?

For me, it makes sense to type, otherwise I could tend to fly over some and pretend I know them, more or less... by typing it, I either get Right or Wrong, and no need to grade myself, the system does it.

As for activating the Reading, you have to go back to your list, in More Actions, Study Settings, select all the sections you need, and then do Update sections. Then, the Reading practices will get added to your practice queue. Hopefully that makes sense. I kind of had a hard time figuring out the system too.

1. Ok maybe some people prefer it, but why aren't there grading buttons? There is enough space I suppose?

2. Thanks, that did it...will probably change with the next update...

It would be faster, but you're self-grading. I have some long phrases I'm studying where, by the time I get to the end of them, I don't remember what tones I put for the first characters. Skritter keeps me honest.

Ok, I got only single characters, so I didn't think of sentences...I just think that giving the choice (like with characters) wouldn't hurt...

I definitely wouldn't want to lose the type pinyin practice. In addition to the "keeps me honest" factor, we have to be able to type pinyin (granted, without the tones) to type Chinese. It would be great to have the grading buttons, though. I'd really like to be able to mark the ones I know very well as "too easy" so I don't get them as often.

I find remembering the correct pinyin is the most difficult part of this process (for me). And because it's the most difficult it's the thing I'm most eager to learn! Haha.

I think you can turn off pinyin practice if you don't like it though?

I still have it on my list to work the grading buttons in there, but there's actually not enough space to make this trivial. Y'all are right that they should be there, though.

@nickybr38 no I want to learn the pronunciation, but without typing...I think "Reading" is the correct mode to do that, isn't it? "Tones" and "Definition" sounds like tones and definitions ;-) Maybe a discription of these modes in the FAQ would be helpful for beginners...

Reading is the one with typing the pinyin.

Writing is writing the character

Tones is drawing a line for the tone

Definitions are a flashcard with the hanzi/kanji on it.

So without typing, you can either use definitions, or you can use tones and hidden pinyin together... Mark yourself wrong if you get the pronunciation wrong.

@ Byzanti - That is exactly what I do. It saves you a lot of practice ques as well. It will lower one of your scores by a bit, but that doesn't really matter a whole lot.

@ Byzanti I knew about the tones but forgot about hidden pinyin, seems to work pretty well for me, thanks!