Hi guys,

So I am a total beginner to Chinese and I started yesterday with the first Integrated Chinese book and the appropriate Skritter list.

But somehow I feel I am not making progress because Skritter is going way too fast and adding too many words at once. Even if I'm getting most words wrong (or the pinyin or tones wrong) it still keeps adding words. I feel like if I get the writing of a character wrong (or the pinyin) Skritter should re-prompt me with the same character in close succession until I get it right. But what happens instead is that it only comes up again after 20-30 other characters, which means I had no chance to really learn it.

Should I "learn" the characters / readings with another method and only use Skritter for the long term memory?

In general it's always best to have an understanding of a word or character before you add it into Skritter, as this will really really help you remember it.

On the other hand, when I first learnt characters (and only characters -- not words at that point) I just went through the entire Heisig list and added mnemonics for each character. But that was a very different learning to what I do now.

Since you're learning from a text book, I would say the first one applies. So have a good look before you add to Skritter, and make sure you understand what you're adding.

However you do it, given that you've got too much on your plate at the moment, I would do two things. One, set the automatic adding rate to slow or manual so you can cope better (you can set this on the study page). Second thing you might consider would be to lower your retention rate to somewhere between 90-95% (this is how much of your vocab if tested at any one time you should remember -- you can set this rate under account->study settings).

Try and give it some time, although you could stop it from adding new words for a while. I think if it asks you too soon, you don't have a chance to really try and remember (you're just taking it from your short term memory) I think you have to get it wrong quite a few times before it starts to stick, that memory is much stronger as well. There is numerous times I have struggled with a character and keep getting it wrong, thinking I need to see it sooner, but eventually it sticks. For some strange reason the more difficult the character is the easier it is to remember, I'm not sure why.

rome was not built in one day my friend!
give yourself some time and dont wear yourself out too soon.
keep the fun!

>>>Skritter should re-prompt me with the same character in close succession until I get it right.>>>

That's what I wish too.

munin, when you first start out, the scheduling is very different because there aren't many words to work with. After a few days, it should level out and become more manageable.

menglelan, for you that would be equivalent to choosing a retention rate even higher than the 97% you've set, for writing at least. We don't offer that because it would make learning very slow. Imagine a retention rate of 100%: you would have to keep reviewing the same few items over and over often enough to never forget one. More information on that here: http://www.supermemo.com/help/fi.htm

I absolutely support Byzanti's suggestion, however, I do it in a bit different way: I either use "Fast adding" or I use "Manual Adding".
Fast Adding: I activate a list by clicking the "restart adding" and let Skritter add a number of items. Once, I have the feeling that it's enough, I discontinue the list by clicking "stop adding". In this way, I get new and old items in a mixed way.
"Manual adding": By double-click on the plus sign, you can choose how many items are added, e.g. your next lesson has 15 vocabulary items there, choose "15". However in this way, the new items are added all at once and presented for learning one after the other in a row.
(For both, don't forget to go to the main screen to make sure that Skritter will sync and really add the items)
I have a preference for the manual adding, because it gives me a good control over the number of new things I have to learn.
In addition, I would recommend to have a look at the list of radicals and to study them even if you are just a beginner. It might be a bit hard, but it would give you a big benefit in the longer run. It's much easier, to remember 2 or 3 components in a character than to remember 15 strokes. Important here is the writing - stroke order and the meaning. Tone is not so important, as most of them do not appear as a character in itself, the pinyin you might also learn automatically when learning the characters, as very often the pinyin of a character arrives from a radical / component.
In this way, you would have two lists, from where you are learning from. With the "restart / stop adding" function you are in control of the list from which Skritter is adding. For example, you can deactivate the list from your study book and activate the radicals list, then you let Skritter add the next 5 items from the radicals and afterwards you deactivate this list again.
In such a way, you know precisely what Skritter is doing and no surprise. Once, you are not adding anything, Skritter will repeat all the old items forever, as it has nothing else to present, even if they are not due (but this is not recommendable in the long run, as you are over studying and wasting the time, which you could use for other things).
Keep in mind, that you can also "star" those hard to remember items and have a separate review of all your "star words".

Munin, I think there are a lot of individual ways of learning it. I started 6 days ago with Skritter defaults and I picked "Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1". Sometimes I have the same impression as you do. It seems to be to fast. But I think I have observed that my brain is getting to adopt to the pacce. Even so there are some chars/Hanzi which I have only seen a few times, they begin to become rememberable.

For my part, I will continue this way for a few weeks and if it does not work out, I will slow down the pace.

Patience is probably the hardest part on this journey of learning Chinese (for my part).

Happy learning!