Flashcard organization

[Shi Guangli]

I'm afraid a lesson for for two weeks is too little work for me. I have no special trouble in taking in vocabulary and grammar, and I really want to make the most of my remaining vacation time before my college subjects start taking most of my attention too.

 

Thank you for sharing your study plan, I will read it

[Shelley]

If you can do 1 lesson a day and retain all you have learnt, then keep at it.

 

Enjoy it while you have the time and let us know how you studies go

[imron]

How do you organize your decks, set your schedules and other definitions?

I describe how I have configured my flashcards here.

[Johnny20270]

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? 

 

 

Good point! sorry I didn't answer your question. I have several decks , some I never use but the main ones are

 

1. A "words" list, 2 sides to the cards 

Front: SHOW Hanzi, REVEAL/GUESS Pinyin, Dictionary meaning. 

Back: SHOW Dictionary meaning [guess pinyin]

INCLUDE (for information only)

(a) source when word came from, (e.g. HPCR3_28 HSK4 to mean the word first appeared in Chapter 28 of NPCR Book 3 and also appears on the HSK 4 word list)

(b) frequency of the 1 or 2 character (taken from DaJuns list), e.g. 饮料 = [1569][557] most frequent characters accord to Da Juns list. this way I can note the 料 and not to bothered by the 饮 at this stage

© example sentences. ANKI hard, PLECO easy

 

2. Character Deck

actually useful to reinforce the  individual characters as I often recognize the word and not the individual characters

One Side Only: SHOW Hanzi, REVEAL/GUESS Pinyin)

INCLUDE (for information only)

Frequency (包 = 454th most common in Chinese according to DaJun)

Example Words: <10 example words taken at random from Deck 1 above (automated process)

Radical of character (if I can be bothered to add it in)

Components of character (if I can be bothered to add it in)

Dictionary meaning  (not I don't guess this as its a bit pointless and unhelpful I think)

 

3. Classifier Deck

One Side Only: SHOW Hanzi, REVEAL/GUESS Pinyin, Why use it Example Nouns)

INCLUDE (for information only)

Classifier Type: verbal, Massifier etc

Its hard to know whether to mark the card correct or not as so many nouns with unusual classifier. Hence I use this when a bit bored. Frequently reset the schedule

 

 

Schedule

Easy to do a lot of words in a week but as months grow they start to build. 5 - 7 average a day is the most for me. 2500 a year say. In my view people who claim to do 50 a day either, (a) do it for a short period of time, (b) gifted © seem to be on a race to amass a word count, (d) lie (e) never really learnt it. By nature of the SRS programs time has to physically pass before you can 'know it'

HSK 5 only has 2500 words, so 7 a day and being able to pass HSK 5 one year is pretty good

 

Your 10-12 a day initially seems fine though. 

 

As for review physical timings, that's just trail and error. For anki anyway I have to short the time between reviews a lot when cards are 'new'.

 

Side note: NPCR

I recently started using them. I agree with Shelly's time table. We cover 1 chapter a week but do it full time, say 6 hours a day but some of those include teaching (easier). Its common in many language schools, to ram through a lot of material in a short period of time but like every one of the students in my school, after 9 months its all a bit of a muddle. The 6 book NPCR series was designed for a 3 years or 1 book a semester (so I'm told anyway). Our school pace it at twice that as the classes are far smaller.

 

Having said all that ...... I'd say keep going and see how you get on. You will know yourself. I can see why you way to pack it in given you have the time.  Some like to religiously plod their way through it, others like to cover the material fast and constantly review. Whatever works. I would say though: definitely do the exercises, they are a real test if you know the words and grammar

[Shi Guangli]

Thank you both for the examples. Johnny, your setup looks somewhat like mine, except that I made two decks based on how NPCR divides it vocaulary ("new words" and "basic chinese characters", which seem to be a mixture of standalone radcals and  single character words like 力，口，尼，木 etc). I guess I can break down the other words and make a character deck as well.

[imron]

One thing I would add, is to avoid single character flashcards where you are only testing for pinyin on the front.

 

The main point of that is to avoid homophones, e.g. if you have pinyin only on the front and you see zhì then 3 months later when you have 5 or 6 zhì's in your deck you'll have no idea as to which one it might be.

 

Instead try to find a multi-character word that contains the character and also matches the meaning you are interested in, then it will more obvious which character it should be, for example: zhìliáo 

[Johnny20270]

As a general rule on flash cards I think its very useful to

• - add all words you encounter in books or at least have formally studied and just suspend what you don't need for now (e.g. idioms etc)
• - add in sources, from the books & chapter that you first encountered (i.e. HSK, NPCR, Grammar book). It makes it a lot easier a year later when you are thinking, "I learnt this really, where? when?"
• - add in full dictionary definitions, As you progress you will use different uses of the word. HSK lists often have a definition solely in the scope of the test, i.e. 点 can be just "o'clock" and "order a dish" but won't include "to light (a candle"). I had the painstaking task of going over all words and reentering them. I just came across 老 last week to mean "always", was surprised it had this definition. 
• - make an effort to add in example sentences that means something to you, and not just a sentence copied from a website , Its useful but somewhat tedious. Easier said that done I admit
• don't be afraid to put on the brakes for a while. My review count is rising to 700 a day now. Its no new words for a week or two until i clear the backlog. "leeches" (new words polluting words you already new) are starting to become a problem
• Give priority to words you did that day while they are fresh in your mind. ANKI and (maybe PLECO) has a choice to add new words in random order or defined order. I often create a sub deck (in ANKI) limit it to a particular tag. For example NPCR3_30, chapter 30 of NPCR, Do all of them as we had just covered them in class, then delete this temporary deck. ANKI will slot them back into the master queue remembering your progress. This is useful as they were fresh in my mind but I may be 100 words behind so weren't due to come up for a week, i.e. just on chapter 27