Migration To Plecodict Flashcards- Some Ideas

[querido]

I don't really need to change flashcard programs.

But I do own plecodict itouch.

I have two ideas for getting started with it, not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Which one do you like better? Any other general scenarios?

1. Dedicate it to cpod newbie+elementary:

Make the itouch, cpod app, plecodict a "cpod_world". Self-contained, audio, text, no transcribing lessons or hand-making flashcards. Then the walking, traveling, bedtime Chinese study is just cpod. I know 2/3 of the vocabulary and already paid for a year too (just can't really think/speak on the fly yet). In this scenario the usual tedious overhead (transcribing, segmenting, cutting and pasting, clipping audio, etc) is already done by cpod.

2. Switch now to a more mature Chinese study methodology:

Quit my micro_dissection_of_everything approach.

Import all lessons whole. (All my old lessons are transcribed already and the audio clipped.) Listen to them and read them periodically in the plecodict reader making flashcards only as necessary (and semi-automatically). The plecodict reader is brilliantly designed to support this approach with regard to the way it handles duplicates and tagging and auto-filling of cards.

This method would avoid most of the tedious labor of my current routine, and I could let go of what I've been doing with regard to counting/inventorying/tagging characters/words/cards. It has gotten too complicated. I can see this method becoming the reading for pleasure scenario, studying incidentally as necessary.

[mikelove]

Sorry I didn't notice this post earlier.

ChinesePod has said they're working on an API which would allow third-party software to do things like automatically download lessons / vocabulary lists, and once they release it we're certainly planning to try to incorporate it into Pleco, so that would reduce the overhead even further for your option #1. We're also considering some options for automatic vocabulary extraction from documents, actually, though we'll need to integrate a better text segmentation system first.

As far as the larger pedagogical question, though, if you're still working through the lower levels of ChinesePod I'd have to recommend continuing to focus on that until you're at, say, Upper Intermediate - I know it's frustrating to keep doing lessons instead of reading real documents, but it'll be a lot easier to learn more advanced vocabulary and work through those documents once you've gotten yourself really well grounded in the most basic / common vocabulary. At least for me, learning in the pre-electronic-dictionary era, I really only started to enjoy things like newspaper articles once I could regularly get through a sentence or two without having to consult a dictionary. Though I realize that in the modern Pleco / Kingsoft / Wenlin / Perapera-kun / etc era it's a lot less painful to look up unknown words in documents than it used to be...

[querido]

Sorry I didn't notice this post earlier.

I'm so happy to see your reply, no problem.

I might even take your advice! :-)

P.S. I hope you'll see the edit I made a few days ago in my little critique here.