This app costs less than a dollar. And it's not worth even that.
From the same people who created the Chinese Skill app, comes an app focused specifically on vocabulary memorization. And it even uses the all-important SRS method. What then could be so bad?
Rather than teaching vocabulary in a way that allows you to begin creating phrases and sentences right away, Chinese Skill Words puts flashcards into categories. As you can see, the one category you can get for free, without paying your $.99, is "titles". This category has 132 flashcards. 
It has everything from the very basic "ba ba" (father) and "er zi" (son) to "gu gu" (father's sister) to "dai tu" (criminal) to "liu mang" (blackguard).
Chinese Skill Words allows for only 3 options when grading how well you remembered a word. (Anki and Ulangi give 4.)
Our brains can't easily memorize long lists of categorized words in this way, even if they are in an SRS tool. Pimsleur and Mango have a far better order for introducing words that will get you making sentences in lesson 1.
Chinese Skill Words also has a "game" feature that shows a word and then asks you to choose one of two options. Multiple choice games hinder learning because the choices prompt your memory. Better to remember from scratch. If you're going to do multiple choice, you should have like 6 options to choose between. A game that gives you only 2 is worthless.
Curious what tools I do recommend? Click here.
Comments
Post a Comment