Flashcards for android, what can I expect?

[xyz123abc]

你好

 

Is there any flashcards app that has USEFUL voice? Pleco has flashcards, but their pronunciation is nowhere useful because it doesn't change the 3rd tones, nor replace the last tone to neutral in most words requiring it (I have the free version, I don't know if the premium version shares this problem)

 

Do you know of any flashcards app (either paid or free) that has "natural" voice support? It could even synth the voice in a server and send an audio file to the device, I don't care. But I can't keep forging the audio for my flashcards

 

In the past I have used anki. Anki is aweasome. I built super amazing (awe inspiring) flashcards with chinese characters, pinyin, synthesized voice, a natural speaker voice (real people talking) and character stroke animation.

 

However that was soooo time consuming, I had to drop it.

 

That's my situation, 多谢

[iand]

What missing tone sandhi? I just looked up 感染, which has two consecutive third tones, and it read the first as the second tone.

[Alex_Hart]

I'm surprised you think Anki is time consuming - are you using a downloaded card format? I just type in the 汉字 and it automatically filled in pinyin, sound (I believe from Google translate?), a picture and the English. 

 

EDIT: Here is a deck I used for awhile. You'll need to fiddle with the fields as it fills in Japanese, German, etc., but it's useful to go off of if you want the audio. http://blog.timo-horstschaefer.de/chinese-anki-deck/

[iand]

The Chinese Support plugin used to have Google Translate as one of its supported Text-To-Speech (TTS) options, but Google stopped providing that service to third parties. It is probably Baidu's TTS service that you're using. The AwesomeTTS plugin supports additional services.

[xyz123abc]

Iand, I don't understand your post.

 

Pleco would read 感染

as

Gǎnrǎn

when I need

Gánran (ran going down softly)

 

I have no idea what you are talking about, Alex_Hart, but it is definitely not what I was doing! I should check the way you have it working!

非常您谢

[mikelove]

Definitely should be reading as gan2ran3, yes - we've supported tone sandhi transformations since the Palm Pilot days. Are you using our paid audio recordings, or our free ones, or TTS? (even our free audio does tone sandhi) Which TTS engine have you selected in Settings / Audio? Our flashcards on Android will play audio through whatever TTS system you like, so even if you're not happy with any of the built-in options you can easily install another voice that will work better for you (pretty much every decent Chinese TTS I'm aware of has an Android app now).

[imron]

(I have the free version, I don't know if the premium version shares this problem

The Pleco audio pronunciation addon has native recordings for some 30,000 words - including tone sandhi and neutral tones.

The addon is only $5 each for male/female recordings, which is not unreasonable.

when I need

Gánran (ran going down softly)

This looks (sounds) incorrect to me.

[Alex_Hart]

@iand: The developer says it's up and running again according to their most recent dev (see below link) but 'fraid I can't check as I stopped using the audio after one too many embarrassing moments in the library. 

 

@xyz: I've never used the Pleco flash card features (although the dictionary has saved my life more than once - Thanks Mike!) so I can't compare the two, but Anki is really only at its best when you're using the fields properly. Here is a basic rundown https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3448800906

 

If you've never worked with fields before, I might recommend downloading a shared deck (here is the above linked deck on the Anki website for all 6 HSK levels: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/235147699 ) and fiddling with the fields that show up. You will also want to learn how to play with tags so that you are able to pick what you're actually studying, e.g. HSK 1 or 5. 

[xyz123abc]

@Alex_Hart 

 

WOW, your recommendation could be the most useful information I have learned here, Thank you! I just started using the anki plugin "chinese_support" , simply amazing. Too bad the Microsoft translator is currently not filling in my field right now, maybe it is not working? The Baidu Audio Grab is working. Google TTS is not working for me, either.

 

 

@Mike

take 先生, for instance. It is market as Red and Gray. But I still hear xiänshëng

感染 is listed as two blues, I hear two falling-rising, sorry. If iand's says it is ok, then the difference is not enough for my ear.

I am using the free audio module, I mentioned in the opening. It pronounces each syllable separately. I don't know how the premium module sounds!

 

@imron

I mean this sound (the one attached)

What is wrong? The sound or my description of it?

Thanks!

感染.mp3

[imron]

I think your description is wrong.  I can clearly hear the third tone on 染.

 

Anyway, compare to the audio from the Pleco audio recording addon (recorded just now on phone).  Mike, I assume this constitutes fair use, but let me know if you think differently.

 

感染.mp3

 

[Shelley]

Free Pleco flash cards are not real Pleco flash cards. Free Pleco flash cards are very good to give you an idea of what they are like but you should consider investing in the basic bundle as a minimum to really get the most out of Pleco flash cards,

 

IMHO any student of chinese should have at least the basic bundle.

 

It really is worth it. I have been learning for many years now for my own pleasure and don't have a big budget to spend but I have never regretted the money I spent on Pleco.

[DonCachopo]

(pretty much every decent Chinese TTS I'm aware of has an Android app now).

Which one would you recommended? (I have bought the extended audio plugin of pleco, but sometimes I need tts)

Enviado desde mi SM-N9005 mediante Tapatalk

[歐博思]

I just recently bought Pleco professional which includes some speaker add-ons different than the free ones. I swear it sounds different and better after I've downloaded those add-ons.

 

I once preferred Anki too because I like to study on my computer, but Pleco's ease of use was just too overwhelming for me. Now if only they'd release a Pleco version of Taiwan Ministry of Education's Taiwanese dictionary

[mikelove]

@xyz123abc - try turning on "use TTS if no recording" in Settings / Audio; that will use Google TTS for multi-character words like this, which might give you more satisfying tones.

 

@imron - sure, no problem on that :-)

 

@DonCachopo - Google, NeoSpeech, and Acapela are all pretty good - we also sell NeoSpeech's TTS in our app directly (which brings the added benefit that it can follow along with playback word-by-word, something not possible with Android's external TTS API). 

 

@歐博思 - we already did! Add-ons / Dictionaries / All Free. MoEDict and Cross-Straits are both available.

[歐博思]

For Minnan Taiwanese I mean *fingers crossed*

[mikelove]

There's an experimental user dictionary project for Minnan at http://plecoforums.com/threads/moe-minnan-and-hakka-dictionaries.4938/ - not likely to be supported officially by non-user dictionaries anytime soon, but we are working on a way to let users add arbitrary searchable fields to user dictionaries, which would potentially enable search (rather than just display) of Minnan pronunciation in the future.