Anki deck templates

[valikor]

I am hanging on because I read about 10 different threads in which people warned to not be discouraged by the initial learning-curve...

After struggling with it for a while, I was able to figure out how to modify my deck templates to allow three fields (English, pinyin, Hanzi). I prefer it this way. I was also able to import a deck and have it correctly map everything.

I thought I had finally figured out Anki! ... Until I started reviewing and found that it is seemingly ignoring my 3rd field... it treats "English" as the question, and "pinyin" as the answer... I don't even know how to get it to show the Hanzi.

A second question... does anyone believe that two sides (Side 1: English Side 2: Pinyin and Hanzi) is sufficient?

On the Anki website it says there are templates specifically for Chinese... I don't see any such templates. I can't even get to the Anki Google Group, since they are now all blocked in China, as of a few weeks ago.

Thanks

David

[tortue]

I'll try to attach a screenshot of how I configured my deck model (start with Settings->Deck properties). You have to type in these HTML-like tags like

%(hanzi)s

%(pinyin)s
%(sound)s

manually (if you want to change the font sizes like I do).

It shows the english (or whatever) as question, then I type in Hanzi as answer. If you want to be pinyin as answer you should just select that field at the bottom of the model window ("Compare with...").

I use a very small Font size for pinyin to force me to focus on the hanzi - otherwise my brain will just blank it out when looking at it. Therefore I use rather numbers than accents for the tones, because the latter are hard to recognize at the small fonts (and also tedious to input sometimes).

In the beginning I sometimes added a sound file - I believe Anki also allows to record one if there is a native speaker around

I don't use it anymore but it doesn't hurt anyway...

[jphoward]

Use File->Download Plugin to get the 'basic Chinese' plugin. This contains the basic Chinese 'model', which is what you need. Then, simply use that model for your new cards. Pinyin and translations will be auto-updated when you type the 汉字 (i.e. the "expression" field).

You can also download "advanced pinyin" plugin to get some optional extras, like sound files, and coloured pinyin.