How can I import my ZDT words into ANKI?

[abcdefg]

I first posted this in the ZDT forum but it got no hits. Thought I would try it here as well before just starting in to do it manually. Hope I have not abused the posting rules.

Have been using ZDT during the past semester. Want to import my ZDT words into ANKI now for more sophisticated SRS review over the summer break.

Could someone please tell me how to do that? Kindly keep it simple since I'm not very tech savvy.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

[roddy]

What do the two formats look like? Pretty sure if you post your ZDT list someone familiar with ANKI will be able to sort it out for you and explain what to do - it's probably just a matter of manipulating the file in Excel / a text editor.

[abcdefg]

Thanks. I'll try that.

[renzhe]

I don't know much about ZDT, but there was a thread somewhere about exporting word lists to Excel.

Excel can save things as CSV or TSV files, and Anki can load that.

[jbradfor]

If you use the "Backup Data" feature in ZDT, it stores it in a format excel should be able to read. From inspection, the file is in UTF-8, and the format is

traditionalsimplifiedpinyin/def1/def2/....other stuff

So when you import it into excel, set the field delimiter/seperator to tab, and you'll want to delete all but the first four columns. [The "other stuff" is information about your right/wrong history.]

If ANKI can read in spread sheets, you're good to go. Except I'm not sure how it will handle the different definitions being separate by a "/".

[renzhe]

Anki can read tab-separated lists like that one, and it supports multi-sided cards, so it should have no problem with importing that one.

Except I'm not sure how it will handle the different definitions being separate by a "/".

They'll most likely be left just like they are, so your "definition" field will have all of them.

[abcdefg]

Thanks very much. That should do the trick.

[abcdefg]

Have been using ZDT during the past semester. Want to import my ZDT words into ANKI now for more sophisticated SRS review over the summer break.

To give those of you who helped with this topic a little follow up. I tried various batch-importing methods without success. This is not to say they won't work for you; they just didn't work for me probably due to my lack to technical finesse.

So I did it by hand, one at a time, rationalizing that the process in itself would provide a means of refreshing the material in my mind. I now have the 600 plus words from my Hanu Jiaocheng text book loaded into Anki and have been reviewing them daily. Suits me to a tee.

It seems tht the low-tech solution is often best for backward blokes like me. Plus I was blessed with enough time to take that less-elegant route.

[ocrtech]

It appears that excel won't put out the utf8 file format that Anki wants. If you export from excel into a unicode file format, you can then import that into an editor that can resave in utf8. That can then be imported directly into Anki without an issue. There are probably lots of other ways to do this but that is the one I stumbled onto.

BTW: I happen to use the notepad2 editor which I downloaded from http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html. This program will import Excel unicode files and reformat them to utf8 without any problem.

[abcdefg]

It appears that excel won't put out the utf8 file format that Anki wants.

That's what I found too and at that point just decided to do the project manually, a little at a time. Thanks for your suggestions, and I'll try that route if I need to do something similar again in the future.

What I currently do, and I lay no claim to its being the best way though it seems to work for me, is to use ZDT for mastering new vocabulary. Then I periodically transfer those words into Anki to take advantage of their more sophisticated system for spaced recall review.

So every day I'm using ZDT for new material I don’t know very well and Anki for long-term retention after initial mastery. I don't like to "dump" a lot of raw new words or phrases directly into Anki, because it takes me longer to assimilate them there when intermixed with lots of other things I already know.

[kdavid]

I've successfully imported a deck into Anki from ZDT. However, Anki is recognizing the question as the traditional characters and the answer as the simplified, which isn't what I want.

Any idea on how I can get Anki to do the simplified characters as the question, and the definition as the answer?

[kdavid]

All right, so this is what I did.

1. Copied and pasted from ZDT to Excel.

2. Saved Excel file as unicode

3. Used Notepad 2 (linked to above) to save file as UTF-8.

4. Went through the UTF-8 file and removed the space between the pinyin and the definition.

5. Imported to Anki

6. Went through deck and added space between pinyin and definition

The reason I had to do step #4 was because otherwise the Anki only provided the pinyin as the answer, not the pinyin and definition I wanted.

I looked for a way to merge columns 2 and 3 (pinyin and def.) in Excel, but couldn't.

Time consuming and inconvenient, but got the job done.

[ocrtech]

If the import from ZDT placed the pinyin in one column and the definition in another, it is really easy to combine the two through a simple formula. However, it is probably even better to import these in to Anki as separate fields and then combine them on your cards. That way if you later decide to change how you want to study, you can remove which fields are displayed without having to reimport anything.

[abcdefg]

All right, so this is what I did.

That's impressive kdavid. I never made it that far. I tried to open my ZDT backup file using Excel and corrupted it. Never got anything "importable." Since my deck was not too large, I wound up transferring the data into Anki manually and telling myself that was a good review.

I use ZDT for things that are new and that I will need to review a lot before they stick in short to medium-term memory. Then when I've sort of got a hold on them, I load them into Anki to harness its spaced recall algorithms and help me retain them over the long haul.

I like both programs and find they complement each other in that way. If I were a "power user" of Anki, I could probably switch to it entirely and just use the cram function at the start to master new material.

Anki has a user forum. Maybe someone there can tell you how to get the Simplified Hanzi to arrive instead of the Traditional characters. http://groups.google.com/group/ankisrs/topics

[Hüsker Dü]

Any idea on how I can get Anki to do the simplified characters as the question, and the definition as the answer?

Here is how I've been transferring my ZDT files into Anki:

Note: Not sure if it makes a difference, but I'm using a Mac.

1. Export the word list from ZDT as a .txt file. Don't include the stats.

2. If you haven't already, download Pinyin Toolkit

3. When you import your ZDT .txt file, you should see the word "Model" near the top left of the import window. Next to it is the word "Basic" with two black triangles. See that wrench icon next to the triangles? Click on that, click on "add" and then select "Mandarin". Instead of the "Basic" question and answer fields, you will now have three "Mandarin" fields: Expression, Meaning and Reading.

4. Before importing you have to "map" the ZDT info into the correct fields. In a basic ZDT .txt file, Field 1 contains traditional characters; Field 2 contains the simplified; Field 3 contains the pinyin and Field 4 contains the definition.

Here is how I map the info:

Field 1: Discard field.

Field 2: Expression.

Field 3: Reading.

Field 4: Meaning.

You should be good to go. You can then select Pinyin Tools in the Anki "Tools" menu and change your tone numbers to tone marks.

This is a quote from the Pinyin Tools site:

"Note: if you also have the “Basic Chinese Support” plugin installed, it must be disabled for this Pinyin Toolkit feature to work. Uncheck it from the list in Settings > Plugins > Startup, then restart Anki."

Hope this helps.