I don't know if other people have this problem too, but I find it much harder to translate a Chinese word in pinyin than one written as characters. This also makes listening comprehension more difficult.

I am wondering if there might be something planned in Skritter to practice that. Either the program gives you the pinyin or as actual listening comprehension where you only hear the recording (maybe with the option of showing the pinyin which would suggest a 'so-so' grade).

Why do you want to improve your pinyin? To me, it seems that the eventual goal is to cut out pinyin altogether. It's just a temporary tool.

I agree that it is important to improve listening skills, so I would (probably) use an option to hear the chinese word and try to write the character. On the other hand, words out of context might not be so very useful, and we might be better just listening to other sources. (I recommend the Linguaphone 22-lesson course - beginner to intermediate - and Berlitz phrasebok with audio - beginner).

Rachael.

I would definitely like an option like this.

Writing pinyin could be one way to check your understanding, but perhaps self-grading would work too.

Ｉ　ａｇｒｅｅ　ｗｉｔｈ　Ｒａｃｈａｅｌ．　　Why does having bad pin-yin make understanding Chinese more difficult? My pin-yin is horrendous. I even have "reading practice" turned off all together. My first teacher told us during our first week of classes, "Chinese people think in characters. We do not think in pinyin. You WILL learn to think in characters." We were supposed to receive 2 weeks of pinyin training. We received 2 days. At the end of day two we already had dictation.

Your pronunciation and pin-yin aren't really related. Just properly associate the sounds with the characters. Upon a rare occasion I still have a problem when learning a new word's pronunciation. What actually happens in my head now is this:

New word: shou3 首
Old word I already new: shou3 手

My mind just makes the connection. OH　Ｙａｈ！　Ｉ　ｋｎｏｗ　ｓｈｏｕ３.．．　ｓｏ　首＝手。　　

Ｉｆ　ｙｏｕ　ｗａｎｔ　ｔｏ　ｍａｓｔｅｒ　ｐｉｎｙｉｎ，　ｇｏ　ｆｏｒ　ｉｔ．　　Ｉ　ａｍ　ｉｎ　ｎｏ　ｗａｙ　ｃｒｉｔｃｉｚｉｎｇ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｄｅｓｉｒｅ．　　Ｕｌｔｉｍａｔｅｌｙ，　Ｉ　ｆｅｅｌ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｇｏａｌ　ｓｈｏｕｌｄ　ｂｅ　ｔｏ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　ｉｎ　ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒｓ　ａｎｙｗａｙ，　ｔｈｏｕｇｈ．　　Ｔｈｅｙ　ｄｏ．

I understood his post as to mean he wants to be able to better understand spoken Chinese. Did I misunderstand that? I did not think he specifically wanted to learn pinyin.

I would love a feature where Skritter reads me Chinese sentences up to regular speaking speed and asks me what they mean (not sure how to implement that though, self grading?).