Naysayers believe your willpower will crumble in the face of wave after wave of our fill-in-the-blank exercises. If that is the case, you should probably go back to the lessons. Otherwise, full steam ahead to fluency, captain.
hotpotmike
said on September 13, 2008
ack, 8/15 but i'm kicking myself on quite a few i got wrong. love these tests though.
small UI comment though. it took my eyes several seconds to find where the button to access the quiz was, even though i've done a quiz before and should have remembered. the last line of the intro could say click the quiz tab to begin, or a hyperlink from the hsk beginner graphic would help. could be just me though - really tired.
johnb
said on September 13, 2008
Yay, 15/15! All that time I put in fasting with warrior monks and studying adverbs has finally paid off.
trevelyan
said on September 13, 2008
When you start cruising past the tests in simplified, you can always switch over to traditional - steps up the learning if you're used to simplified.Our first Advanced HSK will land later this week. Preparez-vous!
johnb
said on September 13, 2008
Ah, good idea. My traditional reading skills are a little subpar these days.
Btw, cheers for not using Flash. It makes the exercises usable on my iPhone, which makes the site a whole lot more useful to me.
henning
said on September 13, 2008
Indeed. It would be cool if you could switch on/off traditional at each page without the need to leave it and go to settings...
trevelyan
said on September 13, 2008
"it would be cool..." -- dangerous way of wording things. It's certainly possible, but how? A floating menu bar would be a distraction. Hotkeys?Soon we'll need a settings page for our settings page....
henning
said on September 13, 2008
You are right: As a non-native I should be more cautious with my choice of words.A page-based GUI mode-switching control might act as a facilitator for or a seamless passage from simplified to traditional characters and thus take the role of an embedded add-on learning-device, providing for another layer of insight into the language.This might be realized with a simple check- or combobox in the header - or, maybe even more efficient, with shortkeys. No floating, shimmering or buzzing devices needed, and no advanced Flash and Java Applets, please. :)
kimik
said on September 13, 2008
@Henning, I've sure David will also call the switch to traditional characters a "seamless transgression". ;o)
henning
said on September 14, 2008
kimkik,arg! I was too lazy, should have checked that one first. Although the "transgression" gives it a nice twist, indeed. Good to have unlimited update functionality here.
trevelyan
said on September 14, 2008
Love it guys. I'll be sure to mention that we specialize in "seamless transgressions" in any product demos.The technical side of real-time script switching shouldn't be difficult. Issues are all about interface design and usability. The best solution may simply be to add an "Are you Henning?" button to our settings page.When checked, this button will also activate the LHC.
hotpotmike
said on September 15, 2008
Henning,The per-page switching from simplified/traditional/pinyin sounds great. I didn't realize/forgotten this could be changed through the user profile and thought these tests were simplified only. A drop-down menu on each page would not only be convenient but would also serve as a good reminder that you can switch from one to another.
xiaodou
said on September 3, 2009
It seems there are some gaps in my vocabulary.
buzhende
said on September 22, 2009
Why is number 14 小吃 and not 大吃????
Gail天堂的声音
said on September 22, 2009
@buzhende,
白吃：to eat without pay - verb
大吃: to engorge - verb
小吃: kind of snack - noun
好吃: delicious - adjective
吃东西，the object of 吃 should be a noun, so the right answer is 小吃。
buzhende
said on September 23, 2009
@Gail
Thanks Gail. That's so obvious. I'm starting to question my "intermediate" self-assessment!
Gail天堂的声音
said on September 23, 2009
@buzhende,
haha, 大吃is relatively a high-level word, even some students in the fourth year of university don't understand that. They would say: ok, in Chinese this word does not exist...o(∩_∩)o...
