Good software for learning characters?

[minismurf]

I am looking for a good flashcard program to learn Chinese, that is similar to the Slime Forest adventure for Japanese.

The main feature I am interested in from this program is not the adventure, but the ability for the program to select characters that you need to learn and don't know already, and rank the characters in usefulness for you. In addition, I would like the software to teach both pronounciation, meaning, and stroke order.

Does any kind of software like this exist already?

I am not so interested in the testing aspects of the program, even a program where you can browse through characters you don't know, and rank yourself how well you know them, for the program to display them more or less frequently, would be very useful.

[krinkle]

i dont know how decent these are but they are free to try (one is a flashcard program)-i am going to try a few of these myself too.

(did a search at download.com)

http://www.download.com/Active-Chinese/3000-2279_4-10152792.html?tag=lst-0-8

http://www.download.com/Declan-s-Chinese-FlashCards/3000-2279_4-10335819.html?tag=lst-0-12

http://www.download.com/Learn-Chinese/3000-2279_4-10349360.html?tag=lst-0-14

[minismurf]

Thanks, I tried the 2nd and 3rd of these before, but didn't see the first one: reviews...

1. Active Chinese: Useful, ugly interface, inconvenient entering methods, only teaches pinyin in testing mode.

2. Declan: Good exercises, doesn't work with keyboard only, otherwise visually pleasing interface.

3. Not better than a textbook with tapes.

Wenlin is still on the top, but I wouldn't mind a better flashcard feature within wenlin.

[sui.generis]

Active Chinese is deceptively useful. After being a program stateside that neglected to stress tones, I was left with a large vocabulary (err, relatively speaking), and bad tones.

Using Active Chinese has helped quite a bit in this respect. It's at least worth playing with the trial version.

[rockytriton]

I wrote a flash card program for my own personal use. Maybe I will package it up and put it on my web site for free. It's nothing too advanced, it just prompts the character(s) and you must then type the pinyin for the character, if it's wrong, it will display the correct pinyin and english and let you enter again, if you are right, it will say "correct: <pinyin> - <english>" in the status bar and move on to the next character. It works fine with keyboard only. Also, it allows you to add to the list as well.

[TCcookie]

Ooh, yes, Rockytriton. Please do post that. It sounds like just the sort of thing I want at the moment.

[Konglong]

I use Pauker. Must have Java runtime installed. Supports Unicode. BTW, it's free.

[mark1888]

Hi Konglong. I've downloaded Pauker but it won't display chinese characters when I enter them with MS IME. Is there another method I can use which will work?