"Key to Chinese Speech and Writing" word list/flashcards?

September 7, 2009 at 11:01 PM

Hello,

I've just finished "A Key to Chinese Speech and Writing vol. 1" by Joel Bellassen and Zhang Pengpeng. It teaches you 400 chinese characters and tons of compounds with those characters. I would like to put all of the words in the glossary into Anki, but that's going to take forever! I was wondering if anyone knew of one of those pre-made flashcard things for this book that I could just download. Even just an online word list would help. Thanks!

September 9, 2009 at 11:13 PM

I would like to put all of the words in the glossary into Anki, but that's going to take forever!

I admit up front to being a “low tech” kind of guy and what works for me may not work for you. But I’ve just finished entering lots of words and phrases into Anki “by hand” in batches of 30 to 50 at a sitting depending on their difficulty and baseline familiarity. The process itself seems to aid my learning. When I must “handle” the material, e.g., say the word out loud, type it, look at it on the page and think about its definition and composition, it helps me “lock it into” my brain in a useable fashion.

Then the Anki reviews themselves are less arduous and proceed more smoothly. I sort of have a leg up from the “flashcard-building” process itself. If I were to just suddenly “dump” 400 or 500 new words and phrases into the program, it would take me forever to “digest” them and imbed them in my mind.

All of which is to say, if you can’t find the pre-made lists you are searching for, don’t abandon the project. The time spent in making the cards yourself is not really wasted time.

September 9, 2009 at 11:44 PM

I agree with the above, and in fact think that the time spent creating the flashcards is an important part of the process. I would never use a pre-prepared deck.