Pleco Flashcards to Anki Flashcards

[寇正豪]

Hello, 

I have bought both Pleco flashcards and Anki flashcards. I really like the ease that Pleco flashcards has with making flashcards as well as how easy it is from the flashcards to look at a single character, view other words that include the character, stroke order, things like that.

 

However, I don't like the timing of Pleco as much. I prefer Anki and think that the SRS is a lot better. However, I don't often have access to a computer, (I don't have one in my home) and mostly use an iPod with wifi. If needed I can use a computer, and I have the desktop version installed on this computer, so that won't be a problem. 

 

My question is, has anyone figured out how to export a Pleco deck and import it into Anki. I just want the most basic of flashcards, with characters and defintions as well as pinyin. I have come close a few times but just end up with one huge flashcard or flashcards that aren't correct. 

 

Thanks for your help 

 

寇正豪

[mikelove]

I don't believe there's any way to import flashcards from a text file in the iOS version of Anki, so you'd need the desktop version of Anki for this. Export your Pleco flashcards to a text file, making sure to enable the option to include both kinds of definitions / remap dictionary ones if unexportable in the Export Cards screen, then transfer them to your computer (easiest way is usually to go into the Pleco "File Manager" screen, tap Edit, select the file, tap Email, and send them to yourself as an email attachment) and use the desktop Anki's text file import function to add them into that. You can then sync the resulting database with their server or export it to one of their package files and transfer / import that back to your iPod.

 

Could you be any more specific about how Anki SRS works better for you? Not trying to convince you not to switch, but we're in the midst of redesigning our SRS algorithm anyway so we're especially eager for feedback about it right now.

[kdavid]

I use Pleco to pound vocabulary into my short-term memory, then Anki to convert it to long-term.

 

To get your Pleco decks to Anki, do the following (substitute iPad for iPod/Phone, etc.):

 

1. Download Notepad 2.

2. Plug iPad into desktop. Allow iTunes back-up to complete.

3. Once back-up/syncing is complete, in iTunes go into Apps and select Pleco.

4. On your iPad, export Pleco desk.

5. Your exported deck will appear in the window in iTunes.

6. Drag and drop this .txt file onto your desktop.

7. Open the .txt file. It will give you three columns (simplified/traditional, pinyin, definition). In order to covert this to a front/back flashcard, you'll need to do the following in order to convert the text from three columns to two.

 

7b. Copy and paste from the text from Notepad to Excel. In Excel, you'll have three columns (e.g. A,B,C). Let's say you want the characters to be the front of your flashcard, and pinyin and definition to be back. Copy the characters (in Excel) to column D. In column E, your formula will be: =B1&" "&C1 This will combine the contents of those two cells into one cell, which will save you a lot of time. Then, copy this formula in E1 all the way down so that the contents of D and E columns are your "front" and "back".

 

8. Open a new file in Notepad 2. Go to "File" > "Encoding" and select UTF8 with signature. Then copy and paste columns D and E from Excel into Notepad 2. Save this file.

9. Open Anki's desktop client. Open the deck into which you want to import these cards.

10. Select "File" then "Import" the aforementioned saved file.

11. Confirm and import on your desktop version of Anki.

12. Sync your desktop and then your iDevice.

 

Done!

 

Sounds like a lot of work, but trust me it's not. You can do this in just a couple minutes once you know what you're doing.

[寇正豪]

Michael, I think the part I like about Anki is the forced learning. I feel that at the beginning of the SRS, if you don't get a character on the very first try it will reappear in ten minutes. I also think the forced loop works well for me, and that in order to feel accomplished I have to get it right at least once. I also like that Anki will keep track and remove leeches. I understand that these can be recreated in the Pleco app and I have been doing so for the last six months quite happily, but I think that it takes a lot of changing of the settings. I also was never 100 percent clear about the scoring system of Pleco, and I am always a little worried to mess with the point system. I also like that Anki shows how many days before I see the card again.

I really think that the ease that the flashcards can be made as well as the ability to move smoothly from flashcard to dictionary entry, stroke order, and example sentences is amazing and will continue to use this feature as I learn new characters, but I feel in the long term review Anki has a better feel. If you have any other questions I would love to give you more feedback. Hope this helps. 

 

Kdavid, Thank you so much. This is what I have been looking for for a while. I do have one last question, I wanted to know if you had a way of cleaning up the definitions, a way of making the definitions less cluttered. I don't really want the example sentences, I am doing the same thing in that I am using Anki for long term review. Any suggestions that have worked for you are always welcome.

[寇正豪]

Thank you both for your timely responses!!

[mikelove]

Thanks for the detailed response!

 

Mid-session repeating of incorrect cards is definitely coming, though we're going to continue supporting the end-of-session option too since some people prefer them there. Automated leech removal, days-before-repeat and a clearer scoring system are coming too, but it'll be a while before they're all ready since we've had to set our flashcard database revamp aside for a couple of months while we concentrate on getting ready for the upcoming iOS 8 / large-screen iPhone / Android L.

 

Regarding your example sentence question, try using the 'remap' function (Organize Cards / Edit / Batch / Remap) to remap the cards to CC-CEDICT instead of PLC - CC doesn't have any example sentences.

[kdavid]

Unfortunately, I haven't found a quick way to do that. If I really want to clean up a definition, I just go in and delete the section I don't want.

[imron]

In order to get an initial repeat loop, what I do is set up a new profile, which I call 'new cards'.

Then for that profile I add a filter to show any cards that have been reviewed 0 times (I.e. All new cards), and also make sure it uses its own score file.

When a new card gets added it gets added to all profiles. I always go through the new cards profile first. These cards only have a front side that shows everything (word, pronunciation, and definition), and I go through them and focus on getting them in to my short term memory (you can set the filter higher if you want to do more initial reps).

Then I switch to my main profile which has front and back and no filters and do reviews there. Because of the separate score file, newly added cards are shown again.

Pleco flash cards are quite complicated, but they do offer a lot of flexibility if you spend time configuring them to suit your needs.

[kdavid]

And while we've got you on here Mike, just an FYI, but I'd pay handsomely for a Japanese version of Pleco.

[mikelove]

Heh, even ignoring the fact that we'd have a hard time finding the time to add Japanese support, publishers in Japan seem to be way, way less friendly to foreign companies than their Chinese counterparts - we've been trying to license a Chinese<->Japanese dictionary for our current app (to go along with our new French / Spanish / German / Italian ones) and the top-flight Japanese publishers seem to be pretty much impenetrable.

 

(perhaps not coincidentally, we've also had the same problem with Taiwan, which is why our dictionary selection displays something of a PRC bias)

[kdavid]

Well, that's unfortunate.

 

This is really a fantastic system you've built, and as someone who will need to learn several more languages for professional reasons, I'd love to have this for Japanese, Russian, Korean, etc. It saves me TONS of time, paper, and ink. I can only imagine how many others would agree.

 

Here's to hoping. 

[mikelove]

We might reevaluate things once we've finished our flashcard system revamp - the question basically is whether we'll be able to create something good enough for people to pay for even if we can't pair it with a dictionary collection of the caliber of what we're offering for Chinese.

[yhe2006]

Mike,

Is there a way to add more Cantonese only (not Mandarin) words in Pleco? Or can I suggest certain Cantonese only words to add?

[mikelove]

Sure - we've actually got a lady in Hong Kong going through and researching / writing tentative entries for a few thousand we've already gathered, but if you find any specific ones please do send them along so we can check them against that list and add them if they're missing.

[Ruben von Zwack]

The new German dictionary is there? I totally missed that! I was waiting for your incredibly big announcement here 

[mikelove]

No, not there yet - newly licensed, not newly released :-)

[Kamille]

kdavid's technique for exporting and importing cards is interesting. Mine is somewhat different but that's not important, it's in not less time-consuming anyway (except that I don't get why we need to download notepad2, the basic version of the notepad works fine for that kind of use).

 

Now I just have a question: I never managed to add color to my cards once exported to anki. Does anyone know how to do it? I'd really like to add color to the tones like there is in pleco. I tried many techniques but anki always ends up showing the code on screen instead of applying it.

[Yadang]

Mike - any chance that "custom fields" are going to be in the flashcard overhaul? The only thing I'd want it for is because there is an Anki version of Harbaugh's Dictionary that I'd love to convert to Pleco and use for flash cards. The thing is, it has many different fields, and I'd like to display different fields on the front of the card and on the back (I would want to display Chinese and Pinyin on the front with the chinese, pinyin, character break down, definition, notes, etc. on the back.... I suppose I could just put all of that in the "definition" part of the dictionary entry separated by new lines... I thought I saw on another forum that there was an unofficial way to import new lines, but I can't find the thread anymore... 

 

Also, it would be nice if you could disable audio if a card is more than x characters long, and also on an individual card basis.

[mikelove]

Custom fields are definitely coming, yes - they're how we plan to support Cantonese, among other things.

 

You can insert newlines unofficially using the private-use Unicode character U+EA01 - that could easily break in a future update, though.

 

An option to disable audio for specific cards makes sense but I'm not sure if a length-based filter is the most logical way to do it - if we go through with our plans to add 'smart categories' then it might be logical to let you tie audio to one of those instead.

[Johnny20270]

Now I just have a question: I never managed to add color to my cards once exported to anki. Does anyone know how to do it? I'd really like to add color to the tones like there is in pleco. I tried many techniques but anki always ends up showing the code on screen instead of applying it.

 

 

 

Hi Kamile, 

 

I don't believe so, The problem appears to be that you import 'notes' from a CSV file which cannot contain formatting. Unless someone else know better the only way is to import your cards, and then color them in the card browser. Very tedious though

 

Although i used to think it was nice to have colors corresponding to the different tones. However, they seem to have no effect on my brain as regards remembering tones. I always just look at the tone marks. Maybe I am just not concentrating on the colors