Edit: for more up to date information about these flashcards, please go to more recents posts in this thread. Cheers
Version 1 of the flashcards came out some time ago, and was discussed here however, recently, with some help and encouragement from Toe Tag and Ratlung, I developed a new version of the flashcard database.
The flashcards have had a revamp to improve the format and layout, and best of all, the whole set now includes Books 1, 2A and 2B.
I have set up a proper download portal at www.truant.net/flashcards where you can download the latest version of the set by chapter or by book.
I just found some interesting stats. Some of you probably already knew this, but I didn’t. Check out this table. I get the impression that even if you were not interesting in mastering the language, it would be well worth learning even just 100 or 200 characters to enhance your experience in Taiwan…
[quote=“Truant”]I just found some interesting stats. Some of you probably already knew this, but I didn’t. Check out this table. I get the impression that even if you were not interesting in mastering the language, it would be well worth learning even just 100 or 200 characters to enhance your experience in Taiwan…
Are they talking about reading comprehension or listening and speaking? Not sure you could understand most spoken vocab with just a few hundred characters in your arsenal. Ditto for reading.
Not sure, but also the term “understanding” can be subjective as it’s all about context too. But, nevertheless I am sure that a good understanding of 100 characters would help out a great deal…maybe 42% worth.
reading comprehension…so ‘filling the gaps’ I guess.
Looking at that table however, I think I’d struggle to learn beyond 2000 chars. That extra 2.2% doesn’t seem like it’s worth the effort to learn 1000 chars.
[quote=“Truant”]
Looking at that table however, I think I’d struggle to learn beyond 2000 chars. That extra 2.2% doesn’t seem like it’s worth the effort to learn 1000 chars.[/quote]
I think I agree. At a certain point, words become more obscure, less usefull day-to-day and less frequently used. Learning and retaining that final 1000 would be tough.
It’s a commonly thrown-around statistic that one hundred of the most common words make up about 42 percent of usage. So, learning the most common words would enable you to undrestand 42 percent of the words being used, but a very small percentage of the context, which would be dependent on less commonly used words (characters).
For instance, in the sentence I want the scissors put in the toolbox, you would understand I, want, the, put, and in, as they are some of the one hundred most used words, but you wouldn’t understand what needs to go where, making the learned words virtually redundant in that case.
However, once you have mastered those one hundred words, your comprehension and acquisition of new words would snowball, as you would be looking for little blocks to fill the holes in your language ability instead of trying to learn everything from scratch (i.e. there would be no point learning toolbox as one of your first, let’s say five hundred words, as it would not come up often enough to warrant the time spent memorizing it, and it would contribute little to your comprehension of the language as a whole.
But learning characters in an order that corresponds to their usage would greatly expedite your language ability as a whole, plus you can fill the gaps with words that you would use more often as they are an important part of your life: I would learn words such as stray and cage to use in my "I want the … put in the … " sentence, Truant would learn flashcard and pile, and Sandman would learn ice and whisky.
So, I believe it’s percentages of usage your talking about, not comprehension.
How come you never speak Chinese with me, Truant? Here you are, all Mr Frash Cards and all. But when it comes down to it, you’re all talk and no action.
[quote=“Mugatu”]By the way, did anyone find a print shop in Taipei that’ll print these out on some thick card and slice them up too?
Then I just need to someone to learn them for me [/quote]
I am going to get some quotes rolling tonight. Will let you know the cost.
You might want to think about ‘thick’ card tho. Thick card will be a stack of cards about 1m high(I kid you not). Paper is about 1 foot high. I am going check out stiff shiney paper (like calendar, brochure paper or similar)
I paid NT$2150 total for books 2A and 2B on some pretty heavy stock paper,
in color, including a perfect job of slicing them with a giant machine.
Some place near Tai Da, just go there at night, the only places with
lights on are xerox stores, and look to make sure they have a giant slicer.
You can slice them a few at a time by yourself, but it’ll take a while and
the edges won’t line up. Incidentally if you download books off the internet
in .pdf format they will cheerfully print and bind those up for you too.
:bravo:
