Using Anki to learn characters

[imron]

reuse available materials (such as pre-made HSK decks)

I agree with all of your post except this part. I'm not a fan of pre-made lists and think people are better off creating their own from words they encounter in their studies - whether from text books or from native content.

This is also why I prefer pleco over Anki because it reduces flashcard creation and maintenance to essentially zero, albeit with the loss of some flexibility that you have with Anki.

That's a trade off I'm more than willing to make though because I personally don't need that extra flexibility and anyway it tends to encourage all that fiddling and tweaking.

[Johnny20270]

There is an inherent danger in over-engineering your flashcards: cloze-style, multiple-choice, complete sentence, multiple meanings and multiple pronunciations. Many people spend more time twiddling with their tools than actually learning.

 

 

 

That's very sound advice! I am excellent at "preparing to study"

 

If PLECO was desktop based I would use it much more

[Lu]

I agree with all of your post except this part. I'm not a fan of pre-made lists and think people are better off creating their own from words they encounter in their studies - whether from text books or from native content.

This is also why I prefer pleco over Anki because it reduces flashcard creation and maintenance to essentially zero, albeit with the loss of some flexibility that you have with Anki.

I agree that making your own flashcards is better, but that's exactly why I prefer Anki over Pleco. With Pleco, you can make a flashcard with almost zero effort on your own part. With Anki, you have pretty much learned the word by the time you're done making the flashcard. Not to mention that you can add the sentence you originally found the new word in and such.

[ForrestEJ]

Yeah - Anki should be used more as a "learned content management system" for review. By the time you make a card, you should have learned the card. All Anki does is remind you that you should look at it every once in a while.

[laurenth]

 

 

Not to mention that you can add the sentence you originally found the new word in and such

 

You can do that in Pleco too. I do it often: select a sentence or any group of words you're reading in Pleco Reader (or select a sentence in any arbitrary app and "Share" it with Pleco reader before; or type it if really needed), tap on "+". Done.

 

I don't even take the trouble to add anything in the "Definition" field as, when reviewing, in case of doubt, you can just tap on any part to check the meaning with the dictionary, which is the equivalent of revealing the "back" of a card.

[Lu]

Can you also type in sentences you find in paper books? I don't read books on my phone.

[laurenth]

Until recently, most of my cards were done like that: when coming across an unknown word in the (paper) text I was reading, I looked it up in Pleco. Added it to a list (to be reviewed later) by tapping "+".  Be careful to use either the PLC dictionary (which is often the best anyway) or the CC dictionary. It doesn't work with the other dictionaries.

 

Now here's the trick: tap "+" *again* for the same word.

 

Pleco will politely ask you what you want to do. Choose "Card info". Then tap "Convert to custom card". There you can type whatever you want.

 

Usually, to preserve the tone colouring of the important headword, I add a colon after said headword and type the sentence, like this:

 

嫌犯: 另外一名嫌犯被怀疑已逃往西班牙。

 

It sounds more complicated than it really is. Too bad you can't use the GF (Chinese-Chinese) dictionary, though. Nowadays, I just add the example sentences offered by Pleco dictionaries (there's a "+" for most example sentences to add them to vocab lists).

[mikelove]

You can use GF now, actually - been possible for the last year or so; go into the Registration screen, write down your ID, tap "Deactivate," then tap "Enter Registration ID" and re-enter that ID. (this will give you updated authorization data that allows definition exports from GF)

 

Automatically adding the original sentence a word came from in the reader is definitely on our to-do list, as are clozes and about 50 other things - 2015 is basically the "year of flashcard awesomeness" roadmap-wise.

[laurenth]

Thanks Mike, it worked. Pleco is amazing and your willingness to help even more so. I look forward to trying the new features!

[mikelove]

Thank you very much!

[Shelley]

I have learnt more about using Pleco flashcards from an "Anki" question than I would have thought possible. Thanks for all the hints and tips guys and/or gals.

[Johnny20270]

Hey Mike, any plans to have PLECO for a desktop version.

 

I have the paid version of PLECO and use it as my main dictionary now. It is very good but the flashcards are far inferior to ANKI. I mean this as a constructive criticism. ANKI does excel in the flashcard ability with its facility to upload a file for the decks. It means you can create and arrange your own sentences much easier.

 

Any plans for future improvement?

[mikelove]

We are working on something in that vein but I can't get any more specific than that at the moment.

 

I'm not quite clear on the second part of your comment - is that just an expansion of your request for a desktop version (i.e. Pleco would be better if it had the ability to edit decks more seamlessly on a desktop) or something else? You can already create cards for Pleco on a desktop and upload them - in fact as of 3.2 it'll even fill in missing character sets / Pinyin if you just want to supply a list of words (or sentences) with custom definitions; we just don't yet offer a dedicated app for that, so it has to be done in Excel or a text editor.

 

Is the process of uploading custom cards with Anki simply a bit faster (as you're syncing via their server and don't have to manually move a file from one device to another) or is there some other way in which it's a better experience?

 

Any other things you'd suggest we improve besides card creation / uploading?

[Johnny20270]

Hi Mike, thanks for your answer. 

 

I use ANKI like this:

 

I have an excel spreadsheet with about 10 columns, corresponding to fields in ANKI terminology. I create a new row (e.g. Row 100 say) corresponding to a new word (100th word) and fill in the other 9 cells (B100:K100) with other items such as example sentences, tags, personal notes, radicals etc.

 

Now the definition comes from an alternative online dictionary (as  PELCO doesn't have an desktop version ) but I would like to use PLECO definitions. However getting the PLECO definitions from Phone to desktop to populate my spreadsheet is too much hassle.

 

I then save this excel spreadsheet (not file) as a UTF8 file and upload to ANKI, as either a new deck or to update an existing deck

 

The point is that I create my own card via spreadsheet, not phone. I never create a card using the phone, but it would be very useful to be able to input some fields (definition, example sentences, radical, related words maybe) into the spreadsheet, that originate come from PLECO database. Alas, as its not desktop based I can't use it.

[mikelove]

So you're not interested in using Pleco for flashcards but you'd like a way to populate your word lists with Pleco definitions, basically? Are you actually reviewing cards on the desktop too, or are you just using the desktop to compose them?

[Johnny20270]

Hi mike i would use PLECO for flashcards if it has the same functionality as anki, Just had a look now and to be honest it doesn't suit me at the moment. Hopefully some day though For example, In PLECO I see that only one sentence can be added (I may have this wrong) but I'd like to see two or three as some words have many different meanings

 

I review cards mainly on phone but some times on desktop, as if I come across a card that has a poor definition or not at all I edit it there and then (i.e. alter my spread sheet)

 

You guys have done an excellent job of the dictionary part so makes me think you will build a flashcard system very well.

[mikelove]

Thanks!

 

At the moment the only way to get multiple sentences on a card is to add a dictionary entry that contains them, but attaching examples to cards is definitely on our to-do list. (if you find / think of any other missing features you'd like to see from Anki you can PM or email me - mikelove@pleco.com)