Pleco flashcards

[weilian]

Hey guys,

I'm seriously thinking about switching my flashcard/spaced rep program to Pleco dict for two main reasons, one more important than the other. Firstly, it gets me off of the computer which limits distractions and secondly I can take it anywhere. It also is easy to generate a deck. Does anyone use Pleco for this ?

Will

[roddy]

Yes, everybody who ever bought Pleco.

I have no idea how many hours I've spent with Pleco flashcards, but it's a lot. My only caveat would be that if you don't actually need the dictionaries (and audio, and stroke order) and already have decks set up, you might save some money by using a free solution - Anki, for example - which can sync between mobile and desktop. But if you do use Pleco, I doubt you'll have any complaints.

[weilian]

I've already got Pleco but have been using it for a dictionary and Anki as my repetition software, so the cost isn't an issue. The deck I've been pounding through in Anki is a pre-generated one so it isn't too big of a deal either, I'll just pregenerate another one and leave HSK 1 off of it.

What I am curious about is the spacing and setting it up, especially how it determines whether you 'learned' a card. For example, is there a new value associated for the card when you test yourself on writing and then on definitions? Can those two types of questions be interspersed? What are "points" and all of the extra jazz.

[tortue]

Roddy, can i suppose from your post that the pleco flashcard system supports training of strokes order? Is it in this respect similiar to e.g. iChinese? That is, you are shown an english (or pinyin) word and supposed to enter the chinese character, with correction if you did not input the right strokes in the right order.

I saw iChinese once and it seemed very good, but I don't have an iPhone and I won't by one just for that.

Are there any other similiar Windows Mobile programs out there?

thanks a lot!

[imron]

Pleco flashcards are incredibly flexible in the range of options they offer. You can have repetition spaced, or you can just do it by number of cards. You can assign multiple different categories to each flashcards and set up testing with all manner of parameters, e.g. cards created in the last month, that you've reviewed less than 2 times, belonging to the category 'HSK-1'.

They really offer a fine level of detail that can be customised to suit many different learning styles.

Pleco does also allow you to test by stroke order, and has stroke order animations for all characters.

Pleco has a demo version available that you can use to check out its features. Just download the program from their website. Once installed, it will stay in demo mode until you purchase an unlock key.

[roddy]

I can see two ways you could train yourself on stroke order with Pleco's flashcards. However as Imron said, there's a massive amount of flexibility built in, and it's quite possible I haven't thought of some.

In the actual stroke order mode, you are given the character with 'hollow' strokes, and need to draw over them in the order you think is right. Then click 'answer' and it highlights any errors in red, and you can then see an animation of the correct order, or your own order. It seems you can just tap on the strokes - you could draw all the horizontals bottom to top and it wouldn't pick it up. Also it's giving you the outline of the character right at the start, so if you want to be pulling the character completely out of memory, this isn't going to work.

The other option is to have it show pinyin / definition and then you draw it into a sketch box. However you need to self-score that against the 'answer' character when shown, and if you need to remind yourself of the stroke order you have to tap it, bring up character info and then select the stroke order tab.

[weilian]

I've been pouring through the Pleco Flashcards reference page and I'm curious to know one big thing: How can I set up the spaced repetition function to act like Anki, giving me a set amount of new words(versus unlearned cards) each day?

[imron]

From the Flashcards Page, select advanced, and under the "General" page make sure that card selection is "Repetition Spaced".

Then under "New Flashcard Session", go to the "Card Filter" page and make sure that "Times Reviewed" > 0

This way the Flashcard session will only show cards that have already been reviewed at least once.

[lan_dawei]

Hello, weilian.

I use Pleco for flash cards. It is very handy. I've generated

some lists on my own. One nice feature on Cpod is the ability

to export a vocabulary to to Pleco 1.0 and 2.0 formats. I use

Pleco 1.0.

I'd be interested in knowing if there are other sources for Pleco

flash cards. Anyone?

Hope this helps.

[dreamon]

lan_dawei> I'd be interested in knowing if there are other sources for Pleco flash cards. Anyone?

Indeed, does anyone know where I can get a single-character-flashcard file for Pleco? That is, a tab-separated 3-column text file, with simplified characters in the first column (ideally by frequency), a single most frequent pinyin reading in the second column, and 1-2-3 terse Heisig-like translations in the third column? Just 1000 top hanzi will do for the time being. Single characters are especially bad for dictionary-generated cards, because of many readings and a monstrous number of translations.

[gato]

There is a flashcard exchange forum at the Pleco discussion forum. Pleco allows you to choose which dictionary to use to fill in definitions for flashcards. The the public domain CE-Dict dictionary tends to have very terse definitions. That might serve your purpose if you are finding the definitions from the paid dictionaries to be too long.

http://plecoforums.com/viewforum.php?f=7

Flashcard Exchange

[tabitha]

My question is related, although a bit of a jump. I haven't bought a device to run Pleco yet, so I'm still using Anki flashcards. I was wondering whether anyone has experience exporting them to Excel or the like in order to print a list. For simple Anki cards, it should be quite easy, but because of the Chinese settings (that translate and provide the pinyin and audio), every time I try to export I end up with a screen full of coding. It's probably quite easy to fix, but I can't figure it out.. Thanks for any thoughts!

[kdavid]

Anki, for example - which can sync between mobile and desktop

Could someone please tell me how this is done?

I've registered on the Anki site. I've also "synced" my decks, but I don't see them on the website. (I.e. I tried to review from a different computer and was told nothing existed on my online account.)

Ideally, I'd like to be able to review on my iPad whenever I'm out and about. For example, let's say I have 200 cards to review. I review 1 - 100 in the morning. I'd like to be able to review 101 - 200 on my iPad while on the bus. (Anki should know I've already reviewed the first 100, correct?)

[Gleaves]

If you have not already, I think you have set each deck to sync. On my ipod, I can do this from the settings (syncing > toggle syncing). I don't have the desktop version in front of me, but there is a similar setting.

[feihong]

Also, the sync is not automatic. Once you've configured it, you must click on the "Sync" button. Otherwise when you sit down at your desktop computer it won't know that you reviewed 100 flashcards on your iPad.