I'm trying and failing to create a LARGE mnemosyne deck - any pointers?

[paike]

So thanks to the praise given to the flashcard programs I started using them and downloaded the full HSK 1-4 words and characters. I spend most of my time going back and forth between HSK 2 and 3 words. Two for review, three to learn some more obscure book-ish words =)

I love this program, its great. BUT, I also have been using the online IOWA website religiously downloaded sections (10 short newspaper-like articles). Now I have gone through about 50 articles and about 5-10 words/saying per article 唾手可得 for example i want to make flashcards.

It takes FOREVER to go through, type chinese, switch to piyinput (thanks CHinese-forums.com), then switch to english and write the meaning. One card, one minute. For hundreds and hundreds of cards, I'm doomed.

I wanted to just go to Spreadsheet, in the A column, go down and type all the chinese, then go to the B column, type the piyin without pinyiinput hao3chi1 (how i originally learned) and make a huge list to add into a file. It doesnt seem to work though. after Im done with some, I click to save as .xml file, then import into mnemosyne and but there are no cards. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks a lot!

Patrick

[imron]

Can mnemosyne read xml files? You might want to try saving it as tab separated text. According to this page however, the Excel unicode format is different from the one Mnemosyne expects. You might try selecting all the columns and copying/pasting into notepad, and then save the file using UTF-8.

[paike]

That sounds great Imron. That WOULD be really easy to make the flashcards, just tab in-between the question and answer.

Rock on!

On a side note, Im in Shenyang and my university has pi-g fl-u now. Students cant leave their buildings and last night at about 12:30 am a bunch of masked men slammed on my door and took my tempture along with everyone in the school. Scary stuff. When the party flexes they rip shirts.

[renzhe]

I wanted to just go to Spreadsheet, in the A column, go down and type all the chinese, then go to the B column, type the piyin without pinyiinput hao3chi1 (how i originally learned) and make a huge list to add into a file. It doesnt seem to work though. after Im done with some, I click to save as .xml file, then import into mnemosyne and but there are no cards. What am I doing wrong?

Make your deck in a spreadsheet program like described, then export the spreadsheet as a tab-separated variable file (TSV). Mnemosyne can import those.

"XML" is a meta-standard. The XML your spreadsheet saves is not the XML Mnemosyne uses.

Personally, I prepare all my flashcards as TSV files, usually made by a script and then fixed up in a regular text editor

the Excel unicode format is different from the one Mnemosyne expects

I'm not sure I understand. How is it different?

[imron]

I'm guessing when saving as unicode, Excel exports utf-16le by default. According to the link above Mnemosyne expects utf-8. That link also says:

However, Excel's unicode text format is not the standard UTF-8, so this only works for latin characters.

So, I don't know the specifics, but seeing as that's the official page I see no reason not to believe it.

"XML" is a meta-standard. The XML your spreadsheet saves is not the XML Mnemosyne uses.

Haha, I completely misread the OP. I saw XML but in my mind was thinking XLS (Excel's native format).

[Hao Xi'An]

I am not extremely computer savvy, but the way I make word lists is I type the Chinese characters into NJ Star. One word a line.

I copy this list into my first column of an excel sheet. I then highlight the word list in NJ Star and select "Tools>Convert Hanzi to Pinyin." I select on top for tones ( you can select number instead) and none for Chinese output. I then copy the outputted list into my second column of my spreadsheet.

You can also use the word annotation function for the definition, but I find that if I create my own definitions I remember it better, so I normally end up typing it in anyway. Hopefully this might save you some time.

[paike]

I copy this list into my first column of an excel sheet. I then highlight the word list in NJ Star and select "Tools>Convert Hanzi to Pinyin." I select on top for tones ( you can select number instead) and none for Chinese output. I then copy the outputted list into my second column of my spreadsheet.

You can also use the word annotation function for the definition, but I find that if I create my own definitions I remember it better, so I normally end up typing it in anyway. Hopefully this might save you some time.

Time saving! I'll pass it on to those I know. Thanks