I'm trying to revise almost-forgotten Chinese. Am using the first ed. of Colloquial Chinse, which is a bit outdated but I like it. The only problem is that the character text is mainly traditional - it gives simplified, but the texts are traditional, so it slows down reading practice.

When I originally learnt, I used my own spaced repetition system with file cards. The cards were moved into envelopes, or partitions in a record card holder, depending on how well I knew them. With Skritter, the SRS is outside my control. I had thought I could use it to practice characters, but I am thinking of using Anki as well, and Skritter is absolutely excellent for writing and pronunciation.

My problems: 1. some terms are neglected and some overworked. For instance, 诶 (ey or oi) constantly repeated, although I get it right, and same goes for tai ji quan, whereas 恐怕 has only come up twice. I am also frustrated that before we even practise 百 （hundred), it comes up in a four-character combination.

Is there any way I can stop it practising combinations? After all, I can learn the combinations myself - it's just the characters that don't get practised the way they do in an alphabetical language, where you can picture the spelling when you speak.

2. The new characters are practised ad nauseam, and the older ones not often enough - for me.

I realize my problem is partly that I'm not doing enough with the book, outside Skritter. I may have to use another book or system and start from scratch. I wouldn't want to stop using Skritter for writing and pronunciation, but I think it will have to be a second string.

Margaret

You said characters keep on coming up, even though you're getting them right. That could be for two reasons. 1. You get the character wrong in a word, so it repeats the character itself. 2. You make some strokes Skritter doesn't like, so Skritter marks it wrong (if it's this, you'll have to correct Skritter yourself).

The reason that 百 is appearing in the 4 character combination is because you added the 4 character combination. Skritter also prefers to show characters in words over characters alone (unless you get the character wrong in the word).

If you want to stop practising combinations/words, then just delete that word when it comes up in practice. Press the magnifying glass icon and then delete all parts of the word.

As for new characters practiced again and again (not being pushed in to the future), that's because you're getting them wrong, or Skritter thinks you're getting them wrong and you're not correcting it. If you simply find a character too easy you can mark it "too easy", and it'll be even longer till you see it again.

Thanks, that's helpful.
Of course I am too lazy to add characters myself - I have done it in the past, but not much. I just find the way Skritter's word list (may be by a member) for Colloquial Chinese is constructed is odd.

I do correct Skritter if it marks me as wrong and I wasn't (this is something I was told I could do after an earlier query). It often misunderstands which tone I chose. And I can stop it repeating new characters by lying, when I was a bit wrong, and then see if I get to revise the older characters sooner. But I have a feeling they are tied to particular days. Still, if I have fewer new repetitions and plough on into tomorrow, maybe I can defeat the system.

Thanks re magnifying glass. Maybe I should watch the video again.

I did mark some characters as too easy, but I suppose I was wrong.

The only advantage I can see of emphasizing compounds is that at least they have one meaning, whereas the individual characters seem to be given more meanings than in the book.

The advantage of compounds is that on the whole they are more practical than single characters. Although that's probably not the case with your chengyu involving 百！

Are you using a writing pad? Might help.

If you want an easy way to add things yourself, you can try adding directly to the queue. http://www.skritter.com/vocab/queue . It's much easier than creating a list.

I do use a Wacom tablet. It may be that it is statistically more likely that I overlook an error in a compound. The queue sounds good. I did import a list, but it's bit time-consuming.

Seems to me that after you get your reviews down to zero that the older characters pop up a lot more often - try putting in 30 minutes after zero reviews due (and stop adding of new words)

Thanks - I haven't tried stopping adding new words yet. About the older characters popping up more often, I will have to try it. I don't see that the frequency of revising old characters can increase, logically, though of course I would see them more often if I worked longer. This suggestion implies adding ten minutes to a day's work to improve what I experience if I only do 20 or 30 minutes.

Btw, Byzanti, I knew about those chengyu but not the word chengyu.
The four-character expression means 'department store' so not a chengyu.

If you feel that skritter pushes charcters that you feel you don't know well enough yet to far off into the future, you could also try raising your retention rate.

Also, you say you study 30 minutes everyday. Do you do all the reviews that are due that day or do you generally have a backlog?
That could be screwing with the srs since items would not be reviewed in time.

I don't understand what you mean by raising retention rate. Do you mean learning them better? My retention rate varies depending on how much I get right. Seems to be about 95%, including some white lies.

I usually finish everything for the day.

I think I have enough to improve things, though. I can then see, if I remove some of these combinations, how much things improve in my experience.

I'm sorry that I wasn't clear.

You can change the retention rate you want to aim for in your settings. Here is a explanation about how it works: http://www.skritter.com/faq#retention

Thanks. I see I will have to look into the SRS system. I had just relied on it till now.

Meanwhile, I think I've identified my main problem. I printed out the list for the first 9 chapters of Colloquial Chinese, which is where I've got to, and I see that it is different from what I want. I will have to make my own list. It is wonderful that the list exists, but I stupidly assumed that whoever made it would have made it the way I want.

This list usually gives characters in compounds only. So say airen is in the list, then you don't get ai separately. I realize compounds and phrases are vital in learning the language, and sometimes only mentioning a compound really explains the most common usage. But what I want to practise is characters (and tones). So if I had made this list, it would consist of single characters.

This explains why Skritter is constantly requesting the words for TV, or qingzuo (please sit down).

I can learn how Chinese works and what the compounds and phrases are outside Skritter or Anki. Skritter or Anki practises what I need to repeat, which is individual characters.

Other people may have different ideas, but I will be making my own list and then I will be able to see how frequent the repetition is, which may be a separate problem or no problem.