Why is skritter showing (bad) Chinese definitions instead of English when adding words?

Hey guys!
I noticed that in many of the lists I have been adding there are bad definitions in Chinese for some words instead of just the English translation/explanation. I thought that the person that made the list for some reason wanted certain words explained in Chinese instead of English, but then I tried making a list myself and found that skritter automatically shows some definitions in Chinese. For example, the idiom 狐假虎威. The definition is someone who isn’t very powerful himself bullying others through his powerful friends or thereabouts, and it can be found in any dictionary, but skritter chooses to automatically show the definition in Chinese. For some words (not this particular word) the definition dont even make any sense.

Is this happening to everyone or is it some setting that I should change? If its like this by default, may I ask why? Many people that use skritter are not that well versed in Chinese thus a definition in Chinese wont be of much help to them.

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Maybe someone from Skritter could answer, but I guess that English definitions are automatically pulled from a dictionary, probably the ccedict database, then if no definition exists, the user can write his own version of the definition and that is added to Skritter database for later use so it can be used also by other users. I guess some more advanced learner chose to write a Chinese definition or he couldn’t find any English definition for that idiom and just used a Chinese one. Anyway when you create a wordlist, you see which definition you get and you can edit it before saving it. I don’t think it’s a Skritter’s problem in this case. If you don’t like the definition, just change it.

If a definition is showing up in Chinese but you have your source language set to English, it means that whoever created the entry input a Chinese definition into the English definition area. Would you be able to let me know of the words that have Chinese definitions (along with what they should say in English)? I can make sure to add the English definition in and move the Chinese definition to the Chinese definition area!

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Ahh, source language was the key! I did not even know we had such a setting but when you mentioned it in your post I looked through the settings and found it! I’ve changed it back to English now so that should resolve these issues! Thanks!

Also while I have you on the line. I am living in China and a lot of times when I start the app or browse the webpage its super slow, using a VPN makes it a lot faster. Is there any settings I can change to improve the loading speed from China without having to use a vpn?

Edit I still have some trouble with Chinese definitions appearing and I cant figure out how to change the definition for words you’ve already added. I click edit the list but all I can do is moving the order of the words and/or deleting them.

There’s unfortunately not a setting you could change to improve connection speed from China, sorry about this! Using a VPN would be your best best currently.

If your source language is now set to English, but you’re seeing Chinese definitions, now it’s actually the thing that I was describing! :laughing:

You can edit a definition while studying it (via the detailed info screen), however there’s not currently a way to change the definition from inside the list edit screen. We’re planning to set this up, though! Alternatively if you’d like, I can change the definitions for you if you could let me know the words along with what the definition should be updated to.

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