Good app for Chinese flashcards?

[13cyberphoenix]

I want to focus on building up my vocab and improving my listening skills. I am finished with Pimsleur and want to continue using audio programs. I'm already aware that there's websites like Chinesepod, but it seems like all of them require payment. I paid for Chinesepod and did not enjoy it, because the speakers waste so much time just talking about unrelated things instead of focusing on teaching new Chinese terms. I think it would be far more efficient if I just spent time learning Chinese words using flashcards, and it would help if audio was included. Any suggestions?

[Shelley]

If you have a tablet or a smartphone, there is really only one choice in my opinion, Pleco.

 

It has an excellent flashcard app with audio, as well as lots of other useful things, handwriting input so you can work out what that character means, good free dictionaries with the option to add more paid ones. It has a reader to help read Chinese documents, an OCR function and much more.

 

Go here and check it out https://www.pleco.com/

 

The other flashcard app that is commonly used is Anki, but I don't like this for many reasons, mainly because it doesn't do the kind of things Pleco does. It harder to add characters/words to lists in Anki. With Pleco you can add them from dictionaries, the reader and more.

 

The cost of Pleco is very reasonable in my opinion, and you can get the basic bundle for not much money and as you go and work out what you need you can add it later.

 

You can also try the free version and see what you think.

 

After sales service is excellent and they are China friendly so if you are in china you can get it from their website.

 

I would always recommend Pleco over Anki. (and no they don't pay me )

[imron]

On mobile at the moment so too lazy to provide a link, but do a search of the forums for Glossika.

[Skunq]

Do you know that you can download just the conversation part of every lesson on Chinesepod as well as a PDF of it? That's what I do.

[AdamD]

Pleco is indeed the best flashcard system I've ever used, but it's not free on iOS. Anki is free.

 

Not flashcards, but Slow Chinese is free and great for building your listening skills. It contains 109 short essays accompanied by slow audio, and it updates regularly.

 

Again not flashcards, but if you're willing to spend the rough equivalent of US$1, Parrot Player (iOS) lets you slice audio files into very short pieces and play them as often as you like. If you've got an audio passage that contains phrases you need to learn, you can isolate those phrases and drill them into your brain. It hasn't been updated since November, so it might be worth waiting to see whether it works on iOS 8 before committing.

[French]

I use Pleco too. It's been a great help in my study. I'm sure I would have learn Chinese much slower without it.

[Lu]

I use Anki and am very happy with it.

 

For me, the downside of Pleco is that you can indeed make flashcards from dictionary entries with minimal effort, but that gives you a flashcard with the entire dictionary entry. Some words have rather elaborate entries, and then how should I quiz myself, should I know all the meanings, just the main meanings? It felt like too much hassle for me.

 

With Anki I make my own flashcards, which is a bit more work, but making a flashcard is also a way of learning the word. Anki also has packets of flashcards that you can download. It's free for Android, but to my knowledge it's actually rather expensive for iPhones.

[French]

You can also download some decks with Pleco (I downloaded HSK 2p12 flashcards for free on Android via the app).

I don't know how you make flashcards with Anki (might be easier) but you can also do it on Pleco.

[Shelley]

Depending on which dictionary you use to make flashcards you will get more or less detail.

 

I find the CC dictionary is very simple, but I prefer the PLC dictionary as it has more detail and example sentences.

 

You can also customize cards.

[hanyu_xuesheng]

 

Anki is free.

 

On iOS, that's not true; Anki Mobile for iOS costs $24.99. Compared to other flashcard apps like Flashcards Deluxe ($3.99) that I highly recommend, this is a lot.

 

I don't like Pleco flashcards, it creates flashcards from dictionary entries, so very often you will edit the card because it's overwhelming.

 

Anki for Desktop is free but since version 2 its GUI and architecture is too complicated and only suitable for computer geeks. You'll need HTML and CSS knowledge to format your cards, and some options are hidden somewhere in a cascade of dialog boxes, simply terrible!!! Anki 2 vs. Anki 1 is a good example how an arrogant software author is changing things to the worse ... Even Anki 2.0.28 is still buggy, and the iOS app is not only pricy but buggy too.

[mikelove]

FWIW, you can import flashcard lists in Pleco with their own definitions, in fact that's the default behavior if the file you're importing includes them. So you're no worse off than you are with a flashcard app that doesn't have an integrated dictionary.

 

You can also create cards from dictionaries with shorter definitions, like CC, and there's a batch "remap" command to regenerate cards' definitions from a different dictionary if you find yourself accidentally creating / importing a bunch of them from a dictionary with needlessly long definitions and then wanting to switch to a dictionary with shorter ones.

 

We do recognize this is a pain point for a lot of people, though, and one of our (many) long-term projects is tagging the most common / important parts of definitions in our PLC dictionary and offering both an option to isolate only those parts of definitions in flashcards and an option to create separate flashcards for each definition.

[Lu]

Anki for Desktop is free but since version 2 its GUI and architecture is too complicated and only suitable for computer geeks. You'll need HTML and CSS knowledge to format your cards

Fortunately that's not true. You can do a lot of interesting things with Anki if you're a computer geek, but if, like me, you only have rudimentary awareness of programming languages you can still use Anki to make your own flashcards. The basic format of front/back is simple enough. Even my mother uses it and she's the kind of computer user who puts her email address in the website address space if she wants to check her email.

[hanyu_xuesheng]

 

Fortunately that's not true. .... The basic format of front/back is simple enough.

 

What about Pinyin, stroke order, example sentences? Front/Back is not enough.

[Shelley]

Well as you can try Pleco for free. give it a go. Its the only way to know for sure if it is any good for you.

[Lu]

What about Pinyin, stroke order, example sentences? Front/Back is not enough.

I make mine with Chinese on the front, pinyin, translation and example sentences on the back. You can also make cards with three or more sides, or have it fill in examples by itself, and lots of other fancy stuff, but frankly I can't be bothered to learn how to do that. I just make them two-sided and it works well for me.

[AdamD]

For me, the downside of Pleco is that you can indeed make flashcards from dictionary entries with minimal effort, but that gives you a flashcard with the entire dictionary entry. Some words have rather elaborate entries, and then how should I quiz myself, should I know all the meanings, just the main meanings? It felt like too much hassle for me.

 

I edit every flashcard, and I don't mind doing it because my custom definitions are more likely to stick in my head.

[Lu]

I edit every flashcard, and I don't mind doing it because my custom definitions are more likely to stick in my head.

That's why I make my own :-)

By the way, I'm not saying that Pleco isn't good, I know that many people are very happy with it (I myself am a happy user of the dictionaries). I just wanted to recommend Anki as another good option.

[AdamD]

It's what you make it. I've bought stacks of dictionaries in Pleco, and I use the definitions and examples from them to work out how best to write my flashcards. Some definitions are misleading unless you really understand the proper contexts of the word (e.g. 甚至, 尽管).

 

But yeah, Anki is free, and the OP asked about free stuff.

[Shelley]

"But yeah, Anki is free, and the OP asked about free stuff."

 

Did s/he?

 

I have reread the OP's original post.

 

I didn't get that s/he only wanted free stuff, just that s/he didn't feel that the money s/he spent on Chinesepod was the best value.

 

Would be nice to know what the OP thinks to all these suggestions.

[AdamD]

Good point.