New Radical App Blog Home

Greetings Radical learners!

Just a quick update, I moved the blog over to blogspot after getting ready to retire the old Plan Wander server, so aside from some thematic changes, everything should be in the same spots.  There have been a lot of thoughts about the next few versions of Radical over the last few months, and we have been listening to your comments on what is working for you and what isn't on the previous items, so there should be an exciting update coming soon.

Until then, cheers!

Mini-games, learning analysis, and a focus on recall

Radical - Writing Chinese version 1.2 was just approved for world wide release in the AppStore!

A lot happened, but I focused the changes down to three areas where I thought we could do a lot better than the previous release.

1. Focus in on more recall elements over recognition,


2. Provide better insight into how you are doing,


3. and add in some more games, rewards, and ways to interact with the characters.

While there are quite a lot of tweaks and improvements behind the scenes (including improving the cognitive model a bit), these three elements were the main inspiration of the work.

Learning should be fun

For Radical, we have been committed to game-based learning since the first release.  I was never one to enjoy one more minute than absolutely necessary in doing homework, and packing in the educational content in a fun way that makes the best use of your limited memorization time just made sense.  In fact, if I hadn't done that in the first release, it never would have come off the drawing board of the compiler!  We added the first incarnation of our achievements system, where advancing your writing skill level in the "Learn" system unlocks parts of the three new mini-games:

• In Conjurer, take a break from grinding and conjure up beautiful pictures based on what you spent time coming to know


• In Canine Commander, order Agent Chow to perform the actions you spent time learning to write


• and meet the Oracle of Bones, a mysterious eccentric guru hailing from the distant past, who challenges you with his mastery of character lore!

Fear not, all of these mini-games will work with your learning set and cognitive model to retroactively grant you any achievements you would have gained, so there's no need to restart the process.  The Oracle even confessed to me that he won't spend too long asking you riddles either - I'm sure he's going to have a bit more to say in a future release.

Upgrades are free for any of the 1.0 or 1.1 users, so just tap your AppStore icon and choose Radical under the Upgrades tab.

Knowing where you stand

One thing that annoyed me in the last release was how I became lost in the middle of a level while in the "Learn" mode.  I straightened that out a bit on two fronts - now there is a level progress indicator, showing how far along you are in the highest level you've achieved, so that you have some idea of how much more there is to do for that particular skill level, and I've included the first pass of a sparkline visualization of how well you know each character.  The sparkline follows a relatively simple model for now, starting each character at knowledge level 0, and advancing up (or regressing) based on how you perform across all content where that character is involved.  This information will definitely be expanded further in the next few releases.

Have fun, enjoy, and exercise your brain plasticity to maximize your learning adventure!  Also, you can now check out our development updates (or talk to us) on twitter by following @PlanWander.

Radical - Chinese Writing launched in the AppStore!

Yeah!

So after a hard push in development, Jane and I have just released Radical - Chinese Writing in the Apple / iTunes AppStore, for iOS4 and newer iPhones.

As somebody who has been frustrated for years with the available Chinese character training software (read: glorified flashcards), getting this app out the door was a pretty big deal.  My shelves are littered with exercise guides and decks of dusty flash cards from previous learning attempts, which I was learning at a snail's pace compared to Radical for two reasons:

1.  They were never around when I had idle moments in my day.

2.  They're generally boring and focused on only one learning model.

I am firmly in the camp of language learners that believe that you need several paths to success in a second (or third, fourth, or fifth!) language, and just having a deck of flash cards and an exercise book is not going to cut it.  I'm partially a kinesthetic learner, so being able to write and interact with the content is very important to me.  And looking at most of the other Chinese apps available in the AppStore gave me the same sort of stomach pains as when you realize a day late that you forgot to call your mom on her birthday.

Even worse, like anybody else, I hate losing valuable time memorizing long lists of data.  Grappling with the large number of Chinese characters that I'd need to know in order to pass a basic literacy test wasn't very appealing either.

So I wrote Radical - let's unlock the powerful supercomputer we've been carrying around in our pockets!

Radical keeps track of where you are in your learning progress.  The levels it uses are based on the PRC education standards (the HSK in particular), and the handwriting recognition let's it know whether or not you've been through the character.  Radical starts with the basic rules of stroke order, and helps you progress through more than 2,600 characters to master the basics.  It keeps track of when you're likely to forget things, and shows you what you should be studying; it also gives you practice tests and a game to play when you have spent to long struggling through the regular learning mode.

Research has confirmed basic common sense - increasing the contact you have with a language increases your chances of success with that language.  So get started!  Head over to the AppStore and pick up a copy of Radical today!

There's a long list of features that are in development which will be available as free upgrades to 1.x users - from more games, to more character writing animations, to additional learning modes, all based around keeping you interested and increasing your language contact.  Break the code of the 汉字 and you'll be amazed at what you are able to learn, whether you're a student hitting the books, an employee looking to advance, or a polyglot on the prowl.



No animals were harmed during the development of Radical.  A lot of characters were mastered, though.