同 can be second or fourth tone. In the phrase 与众不同 the 同 should be second tone according to MDBG. However, even when I choose fourth tone, Skritter marks me correct. Shouldn't the system enforce the tone marks based on the word, not the character?

James

Yes, it will in the new version. We are going to be stricter about getting the tone right in the context of the current word (but smarter about not marking the character tone wrong if it is a valid choice for that character).

By the way, I'm basically done with the big Flash rewrite. You can't see it yet, because we're doing a big prompt interface redesign and adding several features to go along with that. But it's getting close! (And after a bit of testing, I'll flip the switch on the basics of reading and definition practice.)

I don't want to throw a fly in the ointment, but what about regional tone differences (好好 for example) and neutral tone? Is 知道 first then neutral, or first then fourth. The answer you get depends on whom you ask. I guess what I'm asking, Nick, is: What is your source for standard Chinese pronunciation, or do you want to fragment the tone system?

Mainland, not Taiwan. Sorry! I do not want to fragment the tone system.

知道 isn't supported in the current or proposed system. According to my understanding, it's zhi1dao5 if you're like, "我知道你很忙", but in 知道不知道, it's zhi1dao4. So we just pick one.

Yeah, I notice tone irregularities from time to time.

Just off the top of my head: the 候 in 时候 can be marked neutral. But in 什么时候, Skritter recognizes this as wrong.

It is a bit confusing though even my teachers & texts have some differences. Ideally skritter would allow any valid tones for a particular word and disallow any others - this can be fairly important if the tone changes would allow (or worse force) me to learn the wrong tones.

In 什么时候 we have the 候 as neutral (perhaps I recently changed it). There are some that are more correct than others, so we try to pick those.

I see it as a minor issue, given the very low number of complaints about alternate tones in words so far. Increased strictness about words having neutral tones in them will reveal further any issues. If it really becomes a problem, we can try to think of a way to allow variations in the words, too, and not just the characters.

My perspective is that one way is better than many. A consistent source gives the dedicated learner a frame of reference against which they can compare other sources, not in terms of right and wrong, but of variation, and come to their own style.