Expenses

[kun4]

My main app for Chinese is Pleco. Bought a Basic Bundle years ago; very good value for money. Since then I've bought a small add-on every year or so.

Apart from Pleco, I'm also using two other apps: Laokang Tone/Pinyin trainer and Skritter.

I'm using Pleco's flashcards to build vocabulary, Laokang to improve my tones, and Skritter for handwriting. Of these three, I consider handwriting the least important: almost everyone uses a mobile phone or a computer to write these days. The only moment when I really need to use handwriting is at written exams. But if I look at this years' expenses, things look horribly skewed:

Laokang Tone Trainer: $1.99
Laokang Pinyin Trainer: $2.99
Pleco: Mandarin Text-to-Speech: $9.99
Skritter: 6 months pre-paid: $59.99

Due to Skritters' subscription based model what I'm least interested in - handwriting - is where I spend most money on. Please include a handwriting test in Pleco's flashcards.

 

[HW60]

I tried the Skritter demo with five characters and think, that Pleco already does what is done there. Try Test type Fill-in-the-blanks, Test reading (Prompt for Pronunciation, Show Characters) and Test Writing (Prompt for characters, Show Pronunciation), Subject Selection alternating - what is missing then?

 

[kun4]

Pleco's Test Writing (Prompt for characters, Show pronunciation) comes closest to Skritter.

Pleco uses the handwriting recognizer. The handwriting addon doesn't know the hanzi you're going to write, tries to guess what you want to write, and is very liberal as to what it accepts.
Skritter takes the opposite approach. It's a flashcard test. Skritter knows exactly what the character is you're trying to write, flags any error you're making, and is very strict as to what it accepts as correct.

If you draw a perfect character, there's no difference. However, if you make an error - say, an out-of-order stroke or a missing hook - Pleco's is likely to say "ok, close enough", while the Skritter approach makes sure you know what you're doing wrong, so you'll hopefully do better next time.

 

[HW60]

When the card is revealed, you know if a hook is missing and can look up the stroke order tab if you are not sure about writing the character. And you can always undo card score if you think you know more or less than Pleco assumes. Not much to do for 10$ a month.