Flashcard system vs skritter

[DonCachopo]

I'm thinking about buying the full flashcard system or even the full basic bundle. But I don't know what that "fill in the blanks test"is. Has it the functionalities and features of skritter? Can it replace skritter?
Thanks

 

[Th41]

For me it is actually way better than skritter. First of all, it is a single purchase unlike skritter and skritter's android version is really bad.
Also, skritter is way more strict about things. If you do not write a character close to their template it will not be recognized. Pleco works differently, wen selecting fill in the blanks with prompt for characters you will draw them yourself and Pleco will try to recognize your written character and give you a bunch of suggestions, just like the handwriting recognition. You select the character you intended to write yourself, or you do not, in case your answer was wrong.

I tried both, skritter and pleco and for me pleco was the obvious choice.

 

[Captain Planet]

(Just a Pleco user here.)

Fill-in-the-blanks test is when you need to either
(a) when asked for pronunciation - type the full correct "pin1yin1" as an answer , or
(b) when asked for the characters - draw them yourself maintaining the correct stroke order so that they get recognized.

From my experience, if set up the right way (disabling character recognition suggestions) it can approximate an actual dictation test very closely and it's a good way to learn new characters or words. If, on the other hand, you're reviewing stuff you're generally familiar with and have a lot of flashcards due everyday, you might want to consider using the multiple-choice or tone practice tests instead, as these are faster to get through.

I don't know about Skritter but it's unlikely you'll be missing some option with Pleco Flashcards. You can check the manual page to see if a particular feature is supported: http://android.pleco.com/manual/310/flash.html

 

[kangping]

How would you go about disabling the character recognition suggestions? Is it possible to do that only for flashcards? I just can't find that option anywhere

 

[mikelove]

It's in our 3.2.13 beta (see the sticky post for how to get at that) under Test Settings - has been around on iOS for a while but we only recently realized we'd forgotten to port it to Android.

 

[kangping]

"has been around on iOS for a while but we only recently realized we'd forgotten to port it to Android" this deserves some serious gong fu action

Thanks for the info, and well, your honesty

 

[mikelove]

Heh, yeah, that one's a little embarrassing - most of the time we're pretty thorough about syncing over new features (at least when it's practical) but as I recall this particular one was done at the last minute at the behest of a large client and somehow didn't make it into the Android porting queue, and unlike in most other such situations it took a very long time before anybody on the Android end noticed it was missing.

(this happens in both directions, incidentally - Android on average gets about as many new features before iOS as iOS gets before Android, and we've had quite a few incidents where we forgot to port an Android feature back to iOS)

 

[Alexis]

Skritter is currently a one trick pony, but it's a very optimized and well-done character-writing-practice-pony (I use the iOS app). Also has stables and stables of word lists. I currently use Skritter to test reading/writing of individual characters, and Pleco flashcards for drilling vocabulary. I use Pleco for "regular" vocab because of the immediate access to the dictionary definitions.