Way to finish strong and crush your starting goal, Michael!

Would you recommend using Italki? I have tons of positive responses about the platform, yet... I don't know it if it is that efficient as for a beginner level. (I know that I am utterly wrong, yet my mind tells me the contrary haha).

@NewDawnTaiwan - I would definitely recommend iTalki. It took me a few tries to find a teacher I like at a price that works for me. Now that I found one, I'm very happy. We have covered most of the HSK2 Standard Course textbook (https://blcup.com/enPInfo/index/75#001) together. Having a live teacher gives me the opportunity to ask questions about word usage and grammar as I learn. It also motivates me to study.

326 cards? OMG!

😓 That was a bad day! Glad to have it behind me! Things are getting more sane now.

Sounds captivating, once l finishes both the Radicals Decks, would you recommend me to embark on the story telling Heisig? Or any better suggestion on the next Deck to attempt?

I hate to give this answer, since it frustrates me all the time, but: It depends. Are you studying for HSK? Do you feel like you have an intuitive grasp of stroke order yet? Are you working through a textbook? (If so, which one?)

That's great! Repetition is the key to everything! At the very end, we need to enjoy the journey to proficiency haha. Amazing progress Michael!

谢谢你！

I totally timebox my learning/review activity (or run a stopwatch) to make sure I track the total time spent rather than just Skritter's reported review time spent clearing the due cards.

@skritterjake That’s a great idea to time record one’s effort. Not forgetting the iOS will also warn you, desist! Too much screen time! Take a walk. Which we cannot due, to the Covid Lockdown 😷 ditto.

@skritterjake That's interesting! I skimmed through the Skritter forum the other day as I was thinking about whether to report total time spent or Skritter "time" (as reported by the app) during this challenge. I've been using the latter, but would be interested in hearing which measure other people are using too.

@Michael F. I would hope everyone is using actual time for the challenge :) So much goes into learning vocabulary beyond what takes place in a review session. Fun fact, the reason we never record real-time on Skritter is that users were complaining many moons ago about leaving the browser window open while doing other stuff was artificially inflating the total time spent in the app by crazy sums.

Thanks, Jake! I think that make a lot of sense and will move ahead counting actual time. Funny to hear the browser story! I always love hearing the stories behind the evolution of software and apps.

So it’s confirmed that only Skritter App time to be input in? No other Apps, Anki, Goldlisting, etc etc. Anyway one can audit on the individual Skritter Progress or we can snapshot ours in weekly or on 31st Oct finishing line.

@Michael F. You can use any way you want to review and learn vocabulary. Skritter is just a sponsor of the challenge, and we’re gonna give out some prizes to some top people. Not trying to be exclusive by any means with Olle’s HC challenge, just proud supporters of the work he does and we thought Skritter would be a good fit for this challenge. If you’re studying vocabulary in any way you should totally track it! :)

@SkritterJake: Thanks for clarifying that for @Kaynis (who is on fire last time I checked!). Kaynis: I just use Skritter all the time because I love it. But I also use a bunch of other tools, depending on what I'm trying to get done: Anki, TOFU Learn, Immersive Chinese, ChineseSkill, LINE Dict, Du Chinese, Pleco, etc.) Jake: Thanks for sponsoring the challenge! I think the prize potential and the promotion you and Olle have done have drawn the most people I've seen enrolled in one HC Challenge. Hearing from so many others on this same learning journey has been really motivating for me!

Ole! for the Skrittation! (pun intended) So it's the Red pill for all the Apps to expand our mind! 感谢 in Malaysian Hokkien.

In your opinion, is the Heisig List practical for daily use? Are you learning the deck because of the mnemonics? I read somewhere; the List is not the most frequently used characters.

That's a good question. It's certainly not a frequency-ordered list. Nor does it really offer any great insight into the deeper meaning of components, like the Outlier Chinese dictionary does. I'm just doing it for the same reason driving all my Mandarin studies: I enjoy it. I like the pictures he paints and the way each builds on the others over the course of a lesson. They help me remember, make me laugh, and spark my imagination.