Supermemo 2004 vs. Supermemo 2006

[myann23]

I've decided to take the plunge and purchase Supermemo based on the positive reviews on this board. I see that the 2006 version is a little more than twice the price of the 2004 version. For the people in the know, would I be getting a lot more in purchasing the newer version over the older one in terms of features? Thanks!

[Xiao Kui]

I didn't know Supermemo 2006 was out until I saw this post, and I haven't tried it, but I have Supermemo 2004 and it has tons of features I don't even use (such as incremental reading), and it's certainly sufficient for what I use it for - learning new Chinese vocabulary.

I think the main point of Supermemo is the algorithm the repetitions are based on, which you can even use without a computer (there are instructions on how to do Supermemo with paper or regular flash cards on their website, I believe.)

[gato]

You can also try jMemorize, which is a free Leitner method-based flashcard software. It's pretty easy to use and has an attractive interface.

http://jmemorize.org/

[mikelove]

Another free option is Mnemosyne, which uses a slightly-tweaked version of an older SuperMemo algorithm. Not as nice an interface as jMemorize, but if you're attached to the SuperMemo concept it provides a good alternative to that.

The biggest new feature in 2006 appears to be a "priority queue" which lets you select specific words to focus on / make sure you're always studying as soon as they need to be studied. It seems like this would mainly be useful if you wanted to keep a very large database of words (say, every new word you encounter in any situation) but make sure that words you're studying in Chinese class are reviewed before any other ones.

But most of the other new features seem to involve incremental reading or other general knowledge / article learning stuff, so I'm not sure if it would be worth the extra money if the main thing you want to do with SuperMemo is learn Chinese vocabulary.

[myann23]

I bought the 2004 version today and admittedly, I'm a bit overwhelmed by its non-user friendly interface. I'll probably spend the next week or so learning how to use this program which sucks, since that takes away from my Mandarin studies and it's less than 2 months until I go to China.

My big question for now is - I want to put the elements of characters, pinyin, and definition to study. Do I need to make separate lists if I want to just focus on pinyin and definition, or maybe character and definition, or can I just input them all into one list and select within Supermemo which elements I want to learn within the list?

[leosmith]

I want to put the elements of characters, pinyin, and definition to study. Do I need to make separate lists if I want to just focus on pinyin and definition, or maybe character and definition, or can I just input them all into one list and select within Supermemo which elements I want to learn within the list?

(I wonder if you've got this answered yet? For questions like this, I recommend the supermemo yahoo users group.) As far as I know, you can't put a "3 sided" flashcard into supermemo. I handle this by keeping an excel spreadsheet as the master, and create different collections for the different combinations of 2 sided flashcards. There is a way to flip an entire collection incidently, but I personally don't know how to do it.

Supermemo is a great tool, but it takes time to learn how to use it. Took me about 30 hours to figure it out and get all my collections up and running. Good luck!

[Xiao Kui]

i agree the interface is annoying.

i just use alt A for new words

control L for learn

and use esc to change from question to answer windows. There are different levels from beginne to warrior. I usually stay in beginner unless I need to access sth in the menu that is only accessible from a higher level.

i have occasionally used other features such as importing xmls, copying collections,, and looking at my stats, but i looked that stuff up in help.

i don't think it's too bad - i think the interface makes it look more intimidating than it is.

[weiwuwei]

Another great program for memorization:

http://zdt.sourceforge.net

zhongwen development tool

It has flash cards, which can contain both the pinyin and/or characters. This seems like the best option for flash cards, and it's free!

And for any of you doing Pimsleur, there are pimsleur flash card lists already compiled.