skip hanzi writing exercises?

[59YNmSos]

Is it possible to skip the writing exercises? One question showed that this character, 费 fèi, was required in the correct answer, but there was no option to choose this character when answering the question.

[MoniqueMaRie]

Hi @59YNmSos

For Chinese I'm always using the wordbank so I can select the answer.
You also do this and the correct/wanted answer was not among the offered words?

[59YNmSos]

My problem with the hanzi writing exercises is that the correct/wanted answer was not among the offered words. This has happened a few times since the introduction of required hanzi in my lessons. To simply complete a lesson now takes a lot more time due to missing hanzi. If I can't find a way to skip hanzi writing exercises, I will leave duolingo entirely, after nearly a year of daily practice.

[Thomas.Heiss]

Mobile app or web portal?
Android or Ios?

[Thomas.Heiss]

Just with the mobile apps you likely will run into some issues sooner than later.

Or maybe there are bugs with these new writing exercises??

Plz check your OS:

• text / font size
• display size

If word banks / bubbles don't fit on the screen and the mobile app doesn't allow you to scroll up/down (on the right side), you may have chosen the wrong text and display sizes/ settings (for a better readability).

Try to reduce one or both of these two in the OS settings.
This should potentially allow the Duolingo mobile app to show more info on the small phone screen.

Since the introduction of cartoon characters and speak bubbles a lot of screen space was wasted by the developers.

Interestingly with a 6.67" screen I don't run into too many issues.
But I've heard those complaints that an entire second or third row of word banks was not reachable before (in general, not specific for a language.

[Thomas.Heiss]

Unfortunately Duolingo is very bad when it comes to give its users FULL control of learning and review exercises.

There are no advanced user settings to customize the experience and to disable/filter out those challengeTypes you don't want or which are too broken to be working correctly.

The only thing which comes to my mind is the "Typelingo" extension for the Chrome browser which hopefully is able to force Duolingo into a a free typing mode.

Edit: Oh no, I didn't fully think that through

Let's say you're on Android.
Then you have the Gboard keyboard where you can add Chinese letters / characters and they all get displayed and you can access diacritics/accent marks per letter when long pressing on it.

But Chrome on Android does not support any extensions, only booklets!

So to use the web portal with a mobile browser you will have to switch over to Kiwi or Yandex Alpha.
Sorry, I haven't tested yet if TypeLingo might work on these two.

AFAIK TypeLingo doesn't exist as a Firefox addon so there's no way to get it working on Firefox (FF) Nightly (debug mode, custom collection_id to add addons from the Mozilla repository) on Android.

For now I don't know of any easy way to get specific Chrome extensions working on Android with FF Nightly which are not available on the Mozilla repository as an addon.

Other addons like Tampermonkey work great on FF Nightly@Android!!

Well ok, there's another thinkable workaround.
Maybe you can switch back to the old tree with a Tampermonkey userscript.
If any of these new Chinese character writing lessons are not only available on the path UI but also on the good old tree design (skill names) there maybe is a chance to complete them with free typing too (old html web code).

But I fear that the Hanzi writing exercises are quite new hence they're only available on an mobile app and only within the path UI as they are kinda of a new level and incorporate new lesson types.
Sometimes DL staff rolls out A/B on all three platforms (Web, Android, iOS).
I don't believe they're available on the old tree when you switch back to it.

If you're on iOS:
I don't know of a proper way how to get Chrome extension on Safari or other browsers running.
But I'm not an Apple user either so I haven't tried
Or if this was possible at some time (the new Android Fenix code is more restrictive than before).

If you use a Pc and a desktop browser you have more choices:

The big issue there only is that you'll need a proper keyboard layout for Chinese.

And that your hardware keyboard doesn't have any Chinese symbols written on it...so how would you want to type them out?

With the help of an on-screen overlay where it tells you all the positions?

As I don't learn Chinese Mandarin I haven't run into any of those specific issues.
Didn't have to find workarounds.

Maybe I'm missing one piece of the big puzzle but with French and Portuguese accents/diacritics I mainly stick to the Android phone as I I would have to customize my own keyboard layout for a QWERTZ German keyboard with umlauts (äöü). I don't use the international English keyboard and when adding a Portuguese letters were differently placed and those were very off from my DE layout.

Nope, haven't intensively searched for workarounds. I know it's possible to customize but that takes time. I never walked the extra mile on my old keyboard.
I only left out the additional accent marks (you can enter the normal Latin letters and Duolingo accepts with a warning).
With Gboard on the smartphone it's of course a different game as I can freely type (when Duolingo allows this) AND see where all the letters are located or where I have to long press for a specific letter (to show up in a pop-up dialogue).

I'm not sure how I would deal with Japanese or Chinese symbols in the best possible way.

Maybe order a hardware keyboard for the Pc.
You're not forced anymore to type English answers, only tapping of word banks (if you don't use TypeLingo).

[59YNmSos]

Thomas.Heiss, thanks for your replies. I use an iphone for the duolingo app. I would prefer to use chrome on mac powerbook, but duolingo seems much more limited on the web on the computer. I think I can see the whole word bank -- at least I can scroll to what appears to be the end of the word bank. Maybe there is an issue with traditional vs. simplified Mandarin. But not likely. The issue is still: some of the simplified Mandarin characters that the correct answers require, these are not included in the word bank.

[Thomas.Heiss]

Do you think it's a scrolling issue with your iOS app or that another row is hidden?

Can you try to make it (display size, text / font) smaller in the system settings just to see if this fixes it or if it's another internal Duolingo bug with the Chinese course?

[Thomas.Heiss]

I would prefer to use Chrome on Mac PowerBook, but Duolingo seems much more limited on the Web on the computer.

In what way / what kind of limitation or missing features?

With the word banks?
The main idea is to get rid of them and to freely type

Or do you mean League competitions and more XPs (on the app) while the Web doesn't give you so many XPs.
The League challenges are also NOT there on the Web (for my account), only on the mobile app.

But what about specific Chinese features like character writing?

I heard there are two ways:
One is that there is a separate tab (on my account, for the Web) for the Chinese (or probably more likely on the Japanese) course.
The other way, which DL staff is testing, is that they included character levels with lessons along the path UI.

I don't fully understand how the Duolingo website is more limited.

Sometimes you have to use workarounds (extensions/addons, Tampermonkey userscripts, patched stylesheets for the Stylus (not Stylish!!) addon.
So something might always be missing on the standard Duolingo code, like speed up and slow down audio buttons (turtle vs normal blue play button; they both have no good defaults).

Always watch out what external code enhancements might be available for Duolingo (Web) to improve everything.

[59YNmSos]

Thomas.Heiss, thanks for your latest replies.
"what kind of limitation or missing features"... yes as you say, there is no xp bonus on the computer.
If my use of duolingo was for a language with the same alphabet or characters as my native language, it might be a good learning exercise. Hanzi are so different from European alphabets that duolingo doesn't have the sophistication to make learning hanzi practical, compared to other ways of study. Compounded with duolingo's failure to include some of the hanzi that are required to give correct answers, it is difficult to see why one would continue using duolingo for more than a year. If duolingo would allow pinyin instead of hanzi, it would probably be ok.

[Thomas.Heiss]

You probably need to learn the basics elsewhere...in 2-3 years they might have fixed these bugs or oversimplified it much further.

But feel free submit bug reports:
https://www.duolingo.com/help/support-request

You can add a screenshot of you want.
Make sure to include all OS, version and app version details and whag course it is (section, unit, level, lesson).

If they'll ever touch the old Chinese course in the future, like they did with Japanese a few times, it will become a big mess and progress gets reset and current position on a unit will change and old completed units will see new words.
People have constantly lost Legendary skill/unit status in the last years.

I mentioned HelloChinese, LingoDeer in another thread and one user wrote he jumped onto the first one (I only heard about them over the years, I don't actively use the second for French/Portuguese) and I first didn't like some restrictions or how their website early implemention behaved and what I have to click on in what order, like when I want to force typing over tapping.

What I specifically mean is that there was "too much clicking" for simple steps required on LingoDeer; the last typing state was NOT actively saved for new questions.
Their initial website launch IMHO was not very user friendly designed - not when you came from the old (working) Duolingo website and have made some better experience there with FULL typing support (which is fine without workarounds).

You must know that I once was a pretty heavy Duolingo Web user who used it exclusively with some rare exceptions.

Haven't tried the LingoDeer apps for ages.
Hopefully something has improved on the Web too.

Doesn't look like Duolingo is that much experienced with Asian languages and how to get true beginners hooked?!??

So another app or tool/site with a clearer Asian main language focus would make a bit more sense to me.

Maybe I should have started either with Japanese or Chinese Mandarin on Fluyo in the meantime as the French course is not yet available, but I didn't have the nerves...
.......not in the middle of doing the French A2 course which I only had restarted on Busuu more recently after a 1.5 years (A2) break.

The Busuu Japanese A1+A2 courses are also quite long.
It's Freemium, they don't force you to pay if you manage to get around all of their Premium pop-up ads windows.

[59YNmSos]

Thomas.Heiss, thanks for the context. It looks like duolingo only uses simplified Mandarin instead of traditional Mandarin, a significant compromise in language learning quality. After lessons today that were more about clicking through procedural steps on the iphone app than they were about language learning, I imagine I'll cease duolingo use by the end of 2024.

[59YNmSos]

Thomas.Heiss wrote "Doesn't look like Duolingo is that much experienced with Asian languages and how to get true beginners hooked?!??"

I think duolingo is quite good for true beginners in Chinese language study, but after a year everyday, its usefulness wanes, particularly with only simplified hanzi.

[MoniqueMaRie]

Thomas.Heiss, thanks for the context. It looks like duolingo only uses simplified Mandarin instead of traditional Mandarin, a significant compromise in language learning quality. After lessons today that were more about clicking through procedural steps on the iphone app than they were about language learning, I imagine I'll cease duolingo use by the end of 2024.

I had already completed the Duolingo Chinese course in the times of the tree and therefore have little experience with the resent course.
I'm currently also using busuu for Chinese.
But there's no traditional Chinese there either (of course).

As far as I know, traditional Chinese is only used in Hong Kong (? I'm not quite sure if it still is) and Taiwan.

If you find another good app, please let us know here. I would be interested.