ZDT, ANKI and MNEMOSYNE

[JenniferW]

I've downloaded ZDT, ANKI and MNEMOSYNE, to try using the flashcard facilities, and am having problems with all of them.

Do other people have problems - or have preferences and recommendations on which one's best? I'm at the stage of having a vocabulary of around 1,500 (words, not characters).

In ZDT, I can't work out how to deal with the pinyin letter ü (the letter U + umlaut). In my input list there was one word which uses this - and I can't type it in my answer so can never get the card rated as correct. I've also had problems with a word which in pinyin includes an apostrophe, separating two vowels, marking the syllable boundary. Also, I don't like the Chinese typeface being used (which seems to make a difference to me) and I can't find any facility for changing fonts.

In ANKI and MNEMOSYNE I can't work out an east way to import my vocab lists which are in a spreadsheet format (Open Office). And I can't face making around 1,500 new cards from scratch when I have this cumulative list already.

I'm sure these are all excellent - but I'm at the stage of getting nowhere fast with all of them.

[roddy]

Try typing v for ü, that's the normal method.

As for importing files, it's normally a relatively simple matter of figuring out what format you need and then knocking your data into shape. Often a case of looking at your options as your saving and selecting a comma-separated or tab-separated variable file - basically plain text with different symbols used to delimit the different fields. You may also need to do some find and replacing. For example if you have

A:B for hundreds of cards, but you need

A; B

then you find ':' and replace with '; ' - you can do that in any text editor.

[JenniferW]

For the U+umlaut problem in ZDT, I've tried using V and it reads that as V, i.e. that doesn't work.

Thanks for the suggestions for how to go from a spreadsheet file to something these programs will take. My problem is I have years of experience of using computers in a work context, so can use a range of software packages competently, but come completely unstuck as regards the real sort of IT literacy you need for this sort of thing. I think the well-intentioned people who design these applications have no idea just how IT-illiterate some of us really are.

[renzhe]

From OpenOffice Calc, go File->Save As->Text CSV (.csv)

Both Anki and Mnemosyne can load that.

These programs are actually quite simple. You either enter your own flashcards using these programs, or you download prepared, ready-made decks they provide. Of course it's more difficult to adapt your own decks made with other software and import that, but even that is not too hard in this case.

Depending on your goals, you might want to look at some pre-arranged decks like this one. Close to 9000 words, covering close to 3000 common characters.

[roddy]

Trouble is that it's impossible for them to know what formats you're going to want to feed in, so standards like TSV and CSV files are used.

One idea might be to manually enter a few cards, then save / export them. Open that file with a text editor (right click, open with . . ) and see what it look like. Then you can figure out how to get your current files into that format. It's unlikely to be too difficult.

[roddy]

Here's the solution to the umlaut mystery.

[greenleaf1348]

I use Anki.

try Anki forum for help with importing:

http://groups.google.com/group/ankisrs/topics?pli=1

[Gleaves]

Don't let the initial lift discourage you. Once you get rolling with these SRS flashcard programs, they easily pay for any initial investment in set up time.

My personal favorite is anki. Once you have a deck set up (my current deck of 7000+ cards did take a while to import and format), you can sync it to allow for studying through any web browser.

These programs usually import tab-separated .txt files as well. I ended up cutting and pasting my open office spreadsheet into notepad, saving it as .txt, and importing it that way (saving as .csv as renzhe suggests makes much more sense).

[JenniferW]

Thanks a lot for all this help. The immediate solution to the umlaut problem is great. You learn something new about IT every day as well as your characters, it seems. I'm now experimenting with the suggestions for creating importable files for ANKI.

Is there any great difference between ANKI and MNEMOSYNE?

[HerrPetersen]

Anki and Mnemosyne are pretty similar in functionality; mnemosyne's focus is on being as simple as possible, while anki is a little more complicated but can (probably - I am not up to date on mnemosyne) be adapted to do more stuff. There is an import function mnemosyne-->anki (not sure about the other way round).

If you send me your excel(I mean Open-Office)-sheet , I can create an anki-file for you. Just postmessage me (and tell me how you want your anki-file set up)..

EDIT: I just went to the mnemosyne-homepage and found that there is indeed a big difference:

(correct me if I am wrong)

mnemosyne lets you only have a question field and an answer field.

anki lets you have as many fields as you need:

In my anki-file I have a sentence-model (you can have different models in anki) which has 6 fields:

1. sentence in hanzi

2. pinyin

3. a sound file

4. definitions

5. commentary/pics

6. translation

Edited February 3, 2009 at 09:57 PM by HerrPetersen

[renzhe]

Three-sided card support is available in Mnemosyne, but it's kind of tacked-on at the moment.

In essence, I feel that Mnemosyne does flashcards, makes it simple and intuitive and stays out of your way. It is insanely stable and reliable.

Anki offers more options (including web-based studying, web-bases storing of your info, and other cool stuff), statistics toys, more power, etc, but is a bit more complex as a result.

Both are excellent at doing what they are supposed to -- help you learn stuff.

I prefer Mnemosyne because it stays out of my way, but either is a good choice.

[ABCinChina]

In Mnemosyne, you can just open Notepad and paste in the info from your OpenOffice program. I would just open the Excel program and format the questions to be in one column and the answers on the column to the right. Then just cut and paste the two columns into Notepad and import as a tab separated text file.

I tried out Anki in the past and think that it kind of lags when going through the deck. It's not a very big deal, but Mnemosyne is faster for me. Yet, I like Anki's interface though it's a bit hard to get used to for beginners. Also, I like Anki's graphs but am still using Mnemosyne for the moment. Mnemosyne 2.0 will have graph functions and other improved features.

[rockytriton]

my preference is zdt, but that's probably because I've made some code contributions to it. Open source is awesome. Actually I've never used the other two.

[JenniferW]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I'm still at the stage of seeing what I can do with these.

I like the fact that with ZDT I have to type in the pinyin with tones - because they're marked in my input lists - in response to seeing the character. I actually score far worse this way - on the tones - than by assessing my level of recognition on a 5-point scale. I'm very conscious of my lack of attention to accurate learning of tones at present because I'm involved in a small joint research project related to this.

I don't see myself using MNEMOSYNE because it only seems to be set up for 2 fields / 2 sided flashcards, which doesn't cater for characters + pinyin + translation.

I've still not cracked importing files for ANKI. I've made a csv file, but when I try to import it I get a message asking me for Heisig numbers. Any suggestions what to try next? I appreciate the offers to make files for me, but think I need to learn how to make my own files as this is going to be something I need to know for the longer term.

[renzhe]

Actually, I don't think that more than 2 sides per flashcards are necessary at all.

Ultimately, you have a question, and you give an answer, which is either correct or not. Depending on what you want to learn, and how you want to learn it, you will format your cards to have different questions/answers. Either you're shown a character and have to provide pinyin and meaning, or you are provided with pinyin and meaning and have to provide the character. Or both.

6-sided cards and whatnot only provide a bit of extra flexibility in preparing your study sessions, but they don't, in any way, improve your learning.

Also, if you want to be strict on tones, simply fail yourself on every character where you get the tone wrong.

[HerrPetersen]

@Jennifer: For Anki you first have to create a deck, that fits your input data ie your csv-file. Like I said above, if you want I can create such a deck for you.

@Renzhe: 2 sided cards are the only logical choice "1 question 1 answer", however having more fields is helpfull, when organizing cards. For instance in my sentence-model I am asked in the following way:

1.) Question: Sentence in Hanzi; Answer: Pinyin, Sound, Definitions, (if necessary translation, comments (on grammar etc))

2.) Question: Sound; Answer: Hanzi (which I have to write), etc.

I feel it would be kinda hard to set up cards like this in mnemosyne and I sure would miss these features - and I do feel they improve the quality of my learning experience

Edited February 5, 2009 at 01:58 PM by HerrPetersen

[ABCinChina]

Of course you can do this with Mnemosyne. This is how mine is set-up.

Question:

合適

Answer:

hé shì – (adj) suitable; fit; appropriate

But of course people like Anki more because it has that cool interface and graphs.

[HerrPetersen]

Of course you can do this with Mnemosyne. This is how mine is set-up.

Question:

合適

Answer:

hé shì – (adj) suitable; fit; appropriate

But of course people like Anki more because it has that cool interface and graphs.

Which does not, what mine does. This is what my 1.) does, if you add sound.

In mnemosyne you would have to set up different cards, which emulate my 2.) Editing cards of 1.) would not result editing in 2.), so if you are editing out mistakes you would have double the work.

Of course this is just minor stuff, but in the end I like Anki better - not only because of the cool interface, the nice graphs and the ability to synch (and rewiew) via internet.

BUT: At the end it comes down to what your relationship is towards your srs-software of choice. You spend (almost) every day of your life for xx minutes. So it ceases to be just some piece of software - and you have to defend it when it is questioned in whatever way. Damn that sounds nerdy - but I really do feel this way.

Edited February 5, 2009 at 02:23 PM by HerrPetersen

[renzhe]

Yeah, essentially, it makes the creation of flashcards and their management easier -- though Mnemosyne automates this for three-sided cards.

But ultimately, you will have two separate flashcards, because your questions 1) and 2) must be graded separately and scheduled separately.

You create your 6-sided cards using scripts anyway. You could just as well create two sets of cards using the same scripts. The only thing you'd lose is the ability to edit all decks at the same time from within Anki. This is a legitimate gripe, but IMHO, a minor one.

So, while multi-sided cards and such are useful tools, they don't really change your memorisation, only make it easier to create actual flashcards. You certainly can learn Chinese just as well with regular two-sided cards.

[HerrPetersen]

Yeah - at the end you just have to sit down and use your srs-software of choice - and not spend more time surfing the internet *guilty*

You certainly can learn Chinese just as well with regular two-sided cards.

And it has been told some even managed it to do it without software-assisted learning!