Flashcard organization

[Shi Guangli]

I've been using Anki for my vocabulary practise. However, I found a problem in my review technique;

 

I started by creating simple double faced cards with a character on one side and meaning on the other. But I also want to see if I can pronounce it. So i thought about adding the reading to the character side or meaning side, but that would defeat the purpose (sort of) since I would always have a clue (I could guess the meaning of a non memorized character just by the reading or the other way around). I want to drill my readings, but I don't want my brain to get too used to having pinyin as a shortcut for either meanings or characters. 

 

 

Should I build a deck for characters/words and translation and another one for characters/words and readings? How do you organize your decks?

[Shelley]

You could have 3 sides to your card.

 

Side one the character, side two the pinyin, side 3 the meaning or any order you would like.

 

I use Pleco for my flashcards and this is how I have it.

I think Pleco is much easier to use to study Chinese as it has been designed only for Chinese unlike anki which is for many things.

It is not available for windows or iOS, so you need a smart phone or tablet but it well worth it in my opinion.

[Shi Guangli]

I have pleco, but I use it as a to go dictionary and sometimes to check stroke order on very strokey characters. Did you pay the full flashcard system or are you using the basic one?

[imron]

If you haven't paid for Pleco, then you don't have Pleco as most people talk about it.  In my opinion, at a minimum you'd want at least one of the dictionaries and also the flashcards in order to be getting the most from it.

 

It's expensive compared to other apps, but cheap compared to say buying a paper dictionary/textbook and it really is a good investment for your Chinese.

[Shi Guangli]

My problem is that I don't have much €€  after investing in some books. I purchased the stroke order diagrams because sometimes I struggle with more complex characters (especially traditional), but it was cheap.

 

Also, my problem with the basic pack is that it has stuff I don't need, at least not now. I don't need cantonese audio nor the optical character recognizer, which are 5€ and 11€. Fortunately, I just checked that the bundle doesn't come with discounted prices, as what sometimes happens with books, and so each component can be bought separately at the same price.

 

What dictionary do you recommend, or specific addons? Are the flashcards worth it, considering Anki is free? (keep in mind I'm at a beginner level but with log run prospects).

[Shelley]

I did pay for it but it was not that expensive, I went for the basic bundle and it has served me well for a few years now. To get the best from Pleco you do need to get the full version.

[Shelley]

You can just buy just the flashcards for $9.99, not sure what that is in Euros, but it is not that much and you can add things as and when you need/can afford them.

[mikelove]

@Shi Guangli - actually, our bundles do come with discounted prices; the items in the Android Basic Bundle add up to $70 when purchased separately (and it'll shortly be $75, since we're about to raise the price of the document reader now that we've added PDF support). The basic idea behind the bundles is that most people don't exactly know going in which parts of Pleco they're going to end up using heavily, so we try to offer enough of a discount that even if you never use half the stuff in the bundle you'll still have gotten a good deal. So if you know you already want flashcards, then assuming you'd find at least $20 worth of that other $60 in add-ons useful you'd be better off with the bundle.

 

However, on Android we also have a good deal of flexibility about upgrades - at least if you buy through our website, if you write us within 1 year and say you wish you'd bought the bundle we'll be happy to let you upgrade for the difference in price. We are usually able to accommodate people who buy through Google Play or Amazon too but we can't make any guarantees about that because either of them could change their developer program policies at any time to bar us from doing that. (though even in that case we could probably still take care of you as long as you downloaded the app directly from our website instead of from them - I miss the old Palm OS days when our customers were our customers and we didn't have one giant evil tech company or another acting as a meddlesome middleman)

[Johnny20270]

Slightly off topic: I always think people have an aversion to buying software. Certainly I was like that for many years, wouldn't pay $5 for an app. Then when I thought to myself that I spend $5 a day on Starbucks it all made more sense. Maybe its just a behavioral issue I guess. Everyone finances are different naturally

 

Back on topic: I certainly rate PLECO as one of the best Chinese Apps out there especially the dictionary, it almost always has excellent example sentences, more concise definitions that the other dictionaries. 

I certainly recommend the basic bundle for starters. I think its well worth the money

 

As for its flashcard use, personally PLECO doesn't suit my needs and ANKI wins hands down on this (sorry Mike!). The flashcard component in the basic bundle is more of a teaser and not really useful if you are serious about SRS. In defense of PLECO however it may very well suit your needs rather than ANKI. ANKI is more a box of tools rather neatly packed SRS program and thus more customizable and powerful. I introduced ANKI to my colleague and he being computer illiterate really didn't like it. Much prefers PLECO

 

Given you are just starting I'd suggest go with PLECO, as you will need the dictionary, its much easier to add a completed card (i.e. with definitions, pronunciations, example sentences etc) to the flashcard system than ANKI. Try ANKI, download an example deck such as the HSK ones to get a feel of it and see which you like best.

 

(Mike can correct me if I have mislead you)

[Shi Guangli]

Thanks for the thorough answers.

 

I ended up purchasing the flashcard add-on, before I read your contributions. I'm moving from Anki, and while maybe the latter may be more customizable, I think Pleco makes it more efficient and less time consuming. I spent so much time typing back and forth between pinyin, characters and definition that it was driving me mad. Now I just have to tap add card, and making adjustments is fairly simple.

 

My main problem is really the spending, Johnny, especially spending on things I'm not sure I'll use to full potential. I'm a college student and I've been trying to find a job to support my interests, but haven't been very lucky  . As you said, everybody's finances are different, and the 5 dollars you spend on starbucks everyday I probably would spend in a whole week. 

 

Having seen how the flashcard and stroke order diagrams could improve my study, I didn't hesitate much in acquiring them. But do i really need 7 dictionaries? I've studied other languages, including Greek and Latin. Of course these don't recquire constant updates (modern speaking of these languages is niche activity) but, although this may sound silly, they are very "wordy" languages. I've been studying Latin for almost 5 years now (2 highschool years and I'm starting my third year in college) and I got through these with the same two dictionaries and a single grammar.

 

Other things I think I can go by without are the optical character recognizer, cantonese audio and the text file reader.  The audio add-ons I could consider, but I could get by with just female or male voice. 

 

Now that I have flashcards, I really just want a nice dictionary. or two dictionaries (e-c and c-e) that can help me go through the first HSK levels, as well as most of initiation (Assimil and NPCR, for example)  and intermediate courses.

 

I'd like to further read your thoughts and recommendations.

[Shelley]

The two dictionaries that come with Pleco have served me well over the years. Some people will tell you that you need other dictionaries because the ones that are free are not always the best.

 

If I have ever needed clarification on a character that I am finding not enough information on, I can use the the internet or ask the good folk here on the forums.

 

I was advised that if you don't know which dictionaries you need now, then you probably will find the 2 included ones good enough, if you get to a point where you are finding either the characters you are looking up are not in the included ones, or you need more info and definitions, then you need to pay for a dictionary and by then you should have had enough exposure to know which one/s to choose.

 

I use NPCR and have always found what I need with the included dictionaries.

 

[xiaokaka]

If you just want one dictionary, I think that the ABC dictionary is the best bet, that together with the free CC and Pleco dictionaries would be a good start. Then you could add the Chinese-Chinese Guifan when you feel comfortable working completely in Chinese.

[imron]

I agree with Xiaokaka.  Get the ABC C-E dictionary, and then later when you're up for it, the Guifan C-C dictionary.

 

Regarding flashcards, Pleco is less flexible than Anki, but where it shines is what you have already figured it - it reduces flashcard creation/maintenance to zero.

 

Not only that, but once you've added a word you can set up completely different profiles for testing various different aspects of that word (pinyin front/character back, or character front/pinyin definition back) and easily switch between these by selecting a few options.

 

If you decide you can forgo some flexibility and adjust your studying appropriately, the time and effort savings are huge.

[mikelove]

@Johnny20270 - could you expand on that a bit? I know you mentioned the lack of multiple sentences before, anything else missing?(we've made a little progress on that with a direct link to the definition screen - gets you to our full slate of examples very quickly - but a massive upgrade to our concept of flashcard 'fields' is in the works now that we finally have a year of comparatively minor mobile OS updates and actually have a decent amount of time to devote to new features again)

 

The teaser flashcard system you're referring to is the one in our free Android app, correct? The Basic Bundle includes our full flashcard add-on with SRS.

[ChTTay]

As above, the paid for flashcard add on is far superior to the free one. At 10 dollars as a stand alone, it's well, well, well worth it. Scrape up those pennies.

 

The ABC C-E dictionary is also much better than the free ones, mostly because it includes the part of speech. I also find the examples useful.

[Johnny20270]

@ Mike & OP
 
Actually I am impressed with your company and its efforts. It makes me think that you will develop the flashcard system. Relating to the original OPs questions I see ANKI and PLECO with two different . PLECO flash cards seems to be well integrated with the app so adding cards is very easy etc. However I create all flash cards on a giant excel spread sheet and import the lot into ANKI. I do this as my excel spread sheet has many formula linking individual sheets (Vlookup statements etc). For example. Flash card creation via customized template design is much much easier of a desktop PC than a phone due to screen size and using a physical key board 
 
It works well but the major downfall is that I have no example sentences or PLECO definitions for my flashcards. My definitions come from, the MDGB database MDGB database which is a bit bland. This is where PLECO far exceeds ANKI
 

 

 

SIDE ISSUE for Mike
Maybe this is for a different thread but some things which I believe would be useful would be 
(A) An extensive separate list of Measure words or at least the most common 100.
In PLECO you can either ...
       1. Search the a Noun and thus PLECO will show the corresponding Classifier(s), or
       2. Search for the Classifier and PLECO will show you some examples and categories
However, 2 above require you actually know the classifier in the first place. 
In class I am often asked us 一 见 ”什么“and we say 一件 行李， 衬衫，礼物. But often forget 一件礼物 or 一件实景 。 There are websites like  Wiki Chinese Classifiers and Dig Chinese but having it integrated to PLECO would be good.
 
(B) The OCR

Although definitely better than the HanPing one is a little unreliable at times. For some reason it struggles with the background color or texture of the books NPCR series, even when the photo seems perfectly clear to me. Other books seem fine. Also if it captures all the words in a static photo graph a slight vertical push of the photo up or down can result it it failing to recognize 80% of the text so I have to constantly "jiggle about". To me this point to the software rather than the phone camera or the actual photo as a slight vertical movement should yield the same results.

 

© Grammatical classification of the word. 

It doesn't seem complete. For example, I am often asked in class whats the difference between 刚 and 刚才 The former being an adverb and latter being a time noun (so I'm told) PLECO mentions the adverb (刚才) but no mention of the type of word 刚 is. Do we just assume its a noun?

 

Few others but can't think of them at the moment.

[mikelove]

@Johnny20270 - understood about customization - definitely an area we'd like to do better.

 

On measure words, we're already planning to add measure words to nouns in the new edition of PLC (not right away but once we're up and running with that new edition we'll start adding content to it) but adding a separate little measure word chart is a good idea - there are a number of useful charts that often show up in the back of printed dictionaries that we'd like to include somewhere (family relations, dynasties, names of countries, etc) - and Wikipedia's would be handy because it's free and open-source.

 

On OCR, we're actually planning a rewrite of that soon around an updated version of our OCR engine and some new code we'll be adding for text detection (some nifty new algorithms for that have come out in the last few years) - on Android we'd been planning to tie that to the new Android 5 camera API, but since Android 5 adoption is going so slowly we may end up doing it separately from that. The weird behavior with static photos mostly relates to text detection - an extra piece of an image / graphical element will sometimes confuse it.

 

On grammatical classification, that'll be fixed shortly in the new edition of PLC, which includes parts of speech for all entries. (though somewhat less detailed than those in ABC)

[Johnny20270]

well done mike, great news!

[Shi Guangli]

I am actually very satisfied with the flashcard add-on. Very satisfied indeed. I took my NPCR audio to the beach along with pen and paper, and, of course, Pleco on my phone. Since I don't have the printed book I listened to the dialogues and vocabulary lists, and in a matter of minutes, after looking up the characters and words, everything was in my NPCR deck.

 

As for customization, I really am at a point I don't know what to do exactly, and so I presume the default settings are good for me in the meantime. I never switched any definitions regarding scores and schedules when I used Anki, and I still don't fully understand how Pleco works, but I think these are things you eventually learn by necessity and progression in your studies.

 

 

I don't want to make this discussion much longer, but the truth is that my question lies unanswered. How do you organize your decks, set your schedules and other definitions? I'm using NPCR, going a lesson a day. The second lesson introduces about 15 new words and characters from the texts, along some other 10 "basic chinese characters" (I notice some of them are radicals; I think the objective is to break down the text characters in their components and learn them too). I have two categories, one for the main vocabulary and another one for those basic characters. However, something tells me so many characters a day may be too much for me.

 

 

@mikelove Thank you for providing so much information about Pleco. It's not everyday you see people behind software and apps so readily giving information and help about their products.

 

EDIT: I just did some research (and some math) and came to the conclusion that I'm probably better off doing a lesson every two days, so I can cover just about everything from characters and words to tone practice. Keep in mind I'm on vacation until mid September and that I don't mind spending an entire day studying a language I like (I used to go through Latin marathons). That would be about 10-12 characters a day, and I'd like to get to at least a 350 character mark by then (my summer objective)

[Shelley]

I am impressed you are doing 1 lesson a day, does that include all the workbooks and doing all the substitutions and drills, practising writing the characters and listening to the text audio and the workbook audio?

 

I did a little write up of my study plan here http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/48918-share-your-study-planschedual/

 

I use the standard flashcard tests, but I do all the test in each configuration for the characters/words for each lesson. You will learn more about how to use Pleco flashcards, remember the help files included are very good.

 

There was another topic where the OP was doing 1 lesson a week but by lesson 10 or so he was finding it hard going, after sharing my plan with him and some discussions with others on the forum, he has now opted to slow down a bit and do 1 lesson over 2 weeks. This is putting in a minimum of 2 to a max of 4 hours per day. You need to be careful not over do it and burn out.

 

It is good that you enjoy it and that you have the time, so do as much as you like but stop when it becomes a chore, do something else and then come back to it refreshed.