Improved Vocabulary learning

Some of you Nincha Learners had complained about the repetitive aspect of unlocking new words to learn new vocabulary. Well, guess what? It’s been improved. Dramatically improved.

The way you unlock words is now super personal to you.

We’ve carefully taken apart our learning algorithm – which is based on the Spaced Repetition System by the way. We tell you all about the SRS here – and put it back together in a way that will make your vocabulary learning a lot smoother.

Know that word already really well? The Great Nincha Machine will notice that and quickly move on to the next word to learn.
Having a little trouble memorizing this word? Our Cat-in-the Machine system will give you a little more time with that word, to ensure you fully get acquainted with it.

Ain’t that cool? The Great Nincha Machine now fully adapts to your learning speed and to your memorization skills, so the way you learn new words corresponds exactly to you.
Your needs, your speed. You’re the one learning so that’s only normal.

Waaaaayyy better reviews

A few of you Nincha Learners wrote to me to share their sorrow in having a seemingly endless number of reviews to do each day and no relief in sight. I felt their pain. Our learning system worked but it just wasn’t good enough yet.
Well, this is all in the past, now. Thanks to the Beta, and your numerous feedback, we carefully looked and analysed the data to see where we could improve the system. The Great Nincha Machine’s review system has been completely overhauled and boy, does it rock now!

Now, you review a mix of words you’ve learned. Sometimes it’ll be easy and sometimes it won’t be as easy. Just to keep you on your toes. Don’t worry, though you won’t stay stuck – quite the opposite in fact! The whole process of reviewing the words you’ve learned is now wayyy better and you won’t see your reviews fly by.

Memory levels

Learning vocabulary is all fine and dandy but how do you know whether you really know something? By taking those words out for a spin of course.

Before you do, how about checking if you know that word a little, a lot or really really well? That’s what our new memory level stars are for. They’ll show you where you’re at when learning a word. And if you haven’t practiced this word in a while and it’s starting to slip your memory, your stars will decrease to reflect that.

Ooooh 4 and 5 stars!

Your goal now is to get each word up to 5 stars; which’ll show that you know that word really well. Don’t you love stars? I do. And there’s nothing I love more than keeping them topped up.

My Ninchanese review routine is now the following:

1. Do my reviews. 152 to do today. Woot! They’ll be finished in no time.
2. Play my Ninchallenges. I’ve reviewed all the words I needed, so I’m all revved up to play.
3. Look at the leaderboard: not that I’m gloating, but being in the top 3 is meowsomely pleasant.
4. Browse the words I’ve unlocked and stare at all my beautiful stars. It’s so satisfying to get 5 stars out of 5.
5. Do a cycle of 3 stages: vocabulary, grammar and speaking.

More changes

These changes are not related to vocab learning but here are a few other things we’ve improved:

• Yocha is now the one teaching you how to build sentences  and Baimei the one you’ll purr in Chinese with – Nincha tried to pull one on us and become the master of all the different modes. Nice try, Nincha! We therefore restored Yocha and Baimei to their rightful places. Phew!

• The leaderboards have been completely redone, so you can see in a glance what rank you’re at and who’s the top cat to overpass. They also look a little nicer, don’tcha think?

We hope these changes will help you progress even more on your Chinese learning journey!

Be sure to let us know what you think of them

Sarah and The Nincha Team

Ninchanese combines addictive game mechanics, cute cats and efficient Chinese learning techniques to make learning Chinese a lot of fun! The app is now in beta so sign up now for early access to the beta! Check out our trailer and stay in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest.

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Our memory forgets things in 6 weeks

Studies show that in as little as six weeks, skills can return to nearly pre-learning levels if not used at all. So when learning anything, if you want to actually learn and remember something for more than 6 weeks, finding a way to apply your new knowledge, in a way or another, is a good idea. So go practice. Especially when it comes to learning Chinese…

Chinese can be easy to forget

Chinese can be a tricky language. It’s particularly easy to forget what you’ve learned and thought you mastered. You thought you knew those characters so well they were ingrained in you, only to find when you start classes again or when you want to speak Chinese again after a Chinese-learning free summer, that you didn’t, after all. That’s because, more than any language, Chinese needs to be practiced – or used – often to keep your language skills sharp.

Practice Chinese in short bursts

The idea is to practice Chinese often, very often in fact. Like regularly even. Ideally, that would be 30 min sessions every day, at least once a day. If you don’t have time for that, try squeezing in some extra study time every time you have a few minutes to spare. That’ll go a long way towards you learning and memorizing things better. Olle Linge, from Hacking Chinese, writes a great article on how to distribute your learning sessions efficiently, based on how much time you have and where you’re studying.

OK, so you’re now having regular study sessions. The thing is, it’s not only a question of practicing regularly; it’s also a question of practicing well and efficiently.

Focus on one key aspect of Chinese at a time…

…and then take a break. Change things up and study something else for a bit. Like say, you’ve been learning to recognize characters and pronounce them for a while. Focus on grammar rules for a bit, or work on building sentences with the words you’ve just learned. Or just watch a video of Op China Style. You’ll learn the character 来 – lái with no problem!

That way, you’re resting your brain by engaging other skill sets. Ultimately, this helps you learn better overall. Because by switching up what you study and then coming back to what you were studying previously, you’re diversifying your learning without even noticing. And that’s a clever thing to do.

If you’re concentrating on one type of exercise for a long period of time, after a while your productivity level will drop. You won’t be as focused as you should be, and therefore not properly memorizing what you’re learning. So change it up; do something that requires a different type of effort. Give your brain a good workout! It’s good for it.

Practicing and repetition is good for your memory

In fact, when it comes to memorizing  it turns out effort and practice have a big role to play! As long as you do it in an intelligent way.  Because rote learning (also known as learning by heart) and repeating words over and over until the words you’ve been repeating no longer mean anything  (try repeating the word “sugar” over and over. You’ll see what we mean) might seem like a good option when cramming for an exam, those techniques won’t help with your long-term memorization. In fact, the more you try to cram in, the less you’ll retain.

Spaced practice: the best way to go

The best way to practice is to space out your practices as this’ll maximize the efficiency of your learning or practice session. Indeed, research shows spaced practice helps learners retain access to memorized information over long periods of time. It’s a robust and powerful learning technique. Yes, spaced repetition is crucial.

So, when practicing your language skills, remember to take it nice and easy (no cramming!), to practice regularly, in short bursts, apply spaced practice (we’ll tell you soon how we’ll help you with that… ) and you’ll be recalling loads of content before you know it!

The Nincha Team

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