I have been searching for years for software with a flash card feature for learning to read new characters and relearning characters that I have forgotten. Is there one that someone can recommend for the intermediate to advanced level? Umm…maybe I need to also review all of the basic characters too since it has been a long time since I studied Chinese.
I know of two ways to handle this:
- Get a flash card program and put in the characters yourself. I used to use “WordLearn” from some outfit in Germany (you can find it on the Net) although it’s a bit difficult to register (he wants only certain types of currency or payments, none of which were readily available in TW. Some have reported that you can simply turn your computer’s clock back to defeat his copy protection, but you didn’t hear it from me.) Time-consuming, but OK. This was for PC.
For the Palm, I use “SuperMemo” which is a very sophisticated flash card program with a good algorithm determining how frequently cards are shown to you in “tests” or “drills”. You can have a large number of different “decks” – divide by subject, source, or whatever. If you want to go this route, we can always divide up the work of inputting characters based on some agreed-upon list, becuase I would probably use them too, and others would as well. This is currently my main method of vocab acquisition and it works very well for me.
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There’s another Palm program called FlashZi (freeware I believe) available at the evil empire of palmgear.com . A friend of mine is using it and likes it very much. The algorithm is a bit clunky and not nearly as smooth as SuperMemo, but then again the characters and other info is already input which is a major plus. Basically you have to indicate which group of 10 characters you want to drill or test at any given time, which for me is too predictable, but hey, it’s free. Since I can’t write anything better, I shouldn’t criticize.
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FarEast has a new CD-ROM out called “3000 Chinese Characters”. Unfortunately I do NOT recommend it for learners of Chinese – at least on my system (Win2000, English version with full Chinese IME support in simplified and traditional Chinese) it has a lot of problems in not displaying Pinyin correctly (the letters with tone marks over them are not correctly displayed on my system, a major problem IMHO), the interface is very clunky and “Chinese-list-memorization-oriented” (i.e., you cannot scroll through the characters, you must return to the main menu and choose a character off a grid of about 100 or so each time you want to see the info on a new one). The content is GOOD, and I think they could have a very good product if they would just ASK A FEW FOREIGNERS who are actually learning Chinese (it mystifies me that they defer totally to Chinese teachers of English in terms of writing English-language materials, but they don’t even ask foreigner teachers of Chinese when making Chinese-learning materials!)
Since the price for this CD is quite high (I think it’s like US$50) please try to test it before buying or you may end up disappointed. (I got mine for free so no big deal for me, but I’m going to pass the information on to them.)
If you don’t mind not having the computer flashcard element, the material is available in book form “3000 Chinese Characters” and I recommend that highly.
Vocabulary lists in Chinese, Romanization and English are available on the Net for various textbooks, too. Those lists could serve as “flashcard fodder” if you can tweak them into the format your program requires. Saves a lot of time.
Hope this helps
Terry
There’s an online one.
I’ve got to go in 5 mins so can’t find it for you now, but you could go to zhongwen.com and look through their links.
Bri
I like Wenlin. Currently v2.5, but 3.0 should be out within a month. If you would like to take a look, www.wenlin.com. Also, those who have use Wenlin before, look at some of the things 3.0 has now. http://www.wenlin.com/faq.htm
Konglong
Does anyone know of similar programs (flashcard / dictionary) to those (Palm applications) Ironlady has mentioned that will work on a Psion?
Wenlin 3.0 is finally released. Go take a look.
A lot of improvements. One I like is the ability to use Chinese fonts you currently have.
Kong
This thread is a year old, but for those searching the archives, this might be useful. If you’re looking for a flashcard program without all the other stuff, there is a very simple Chinese flashcard program that has all the characters used in the Practical Chinese Reader books 1-3. You can switch between simple/traditional characters. It keeps track of which characters you missed, etc. Some would say this is more beginner level, but it had plenty enough characters to keep me busy for a while. There is also a version for Palm OS. It’s free. You can get it here:
Speaking about Supermemo,
does anyone know if it’s possible to buy it from a shop (I mean not online) in Taiwan?
I’m looking for the PC version, not Palm.
Merci.
[quote=“Taurus”]Speaking about Supermemo,
does anyone know if it’s possible to buy it from a shop (I mean not online) in Taiwan?
I’m looking for the PC version, not Palm.
Merci.[/quote]
As far as I know online only. They have demo’s of some of the PC versions on their site www.supermemo.com (since the link hasn’t been posted in this thread yet.)
Dear stodgy,
I found some of the entries in the included lessons had errors.
I think it was because they used a computer program to translate some of the entries from simplified characters to traditional characters and didn’t take into account that some simplified characters replaced more than one traditional character.
But, the program does include a vocabulary editor so you can make flashcards of your own.
And depending on the font you choose to use you can make lessons as easy and as difficult as you want.
If you use a Unicode font you can even include pinyin with tone marks instead of just a number.
You could also include dialectal characters, simplified characters, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc.
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to use pinyin in supermemo all day. The only way I’ve found to do it is type a pinyin phrase into Word, use a macro to change it from numbers to tone marks, and cut and paste it into supermemo. This process is taking forever, though. And, the macro I got doesn’t do anything with the “fifth” tone or umlauts.
The only databases I find are for palm. I’m using the Windows version, though. The databases don’t seem to convert right. But, there are so many conversion methods, I might not be using the right one.
I recommend FullRecall. It’s free for up to 500 flashcards and comes in Windows, Portable, Palm, or WinMobile version, I think. All the databases work with all versions, so it’s easy to keep synced up.
FullRecall for PC (Windows/OSX/Linux/FreeBSD, actually) is good. And it’s really handy that it syncs with the Windows Mobile version. (It doesn’t sync properly with the Palm version though, due to no Unicode support on Palm.)
Still, I’d say that for someone who’s not going to use their flashcard program on a mobile device, Mnemosyne and Anki have the edge. They’re completely free and open source. Mnemosyne is really nice and simple–it’s the one I personally prefer. But Anki gives more options for adding multimedia and configuring question/answer formats.
I do know that David Calinski has plans to further improve FullRecall in many areas, though. It’s certainly not bad as it is, and it will be interesting to see whether its commercial nature will eventually take it further than its open source cousins.
About spitzig’s question on entering tone marks with least hassle, what do other people do? Personally, I stick to the numbers–that’s all that I can do on Supermemo for Palm! But input on Supermemo for Windows should be no different than on any other Windows program. What’s the quickest way to input tone marks?
Anki is just great. It is free software (as in both free beer and free speech). It is also one of the few free software projects I support with actual money. And to get my money, you better be pretty darn spectacular. So Anki is pretty darn spectacular. I’ve tried many other softwares before settling on Anki and for me Anki was just the best. (Yep, I’ve also tried Mnemosyne and did not like it. Sorry, joesax.)
[quote=“joesax”]Still, I’d say that for someone who’s not going to use their flashcard program on a mobile device, Mnemosyne and Anki have the edge.
[/quote]
I think Anki has some support for some mobile devices but I’ve never tried it. I use my Pleco flashcards on my Palm. Not optimal, I know.
[quote=“lemur”]Anki is just great. It is free software (as in both free beer and free speech). It is also one of the few free software projects I support with actual money. And to get my money, you better be pretty darn spectacular. So Anki is pretty darn spectacular. I’ve tried many other softwares before settling on Anki and for me Anki was just the best. (Yep, I’ve also tried Mnemosyne and did not like it. Sorry, joesax.)
[quote=“joesax”]Still, I’d say that for someone who’s not going to use their flashcard program on a mobile device, Mnemosyne and Anki have the edge.
[/quote]
I think Anki has some support for some mobile devices but I’ve never tried it. I use my Pleco flashcards on my Palm. Not optimal, I know.[/quote]
So with Anki you need to input your own vocabulary, right?
There are also decks available online. I’ve never used them though. Here are some:
ichi2.net/anki/wiki/ExtraDecks
I use Anki for Mandarin and Classical Tibetan mainly. For Classical Tibetan, I have to input everything myself. For Mandarin, I am able to manage with data already present on the Internet which I transform into CSV files which I can then import into Anki. Unfortunately, this requires some programming skill.
For instance, a lot of vocabulary lists are available here:
Konrad Wojas does not support Anki directly but he also makes his raw data files available and so they can be transformed into a CSV file for importing into Anki. I think you could also get Mnemosyne files from Wojas’ web site and import them into Anki because Anki can import Mnemosyne files directly.
The Practical Audio-Visual Chinese word lists, in CSV form, should still be floating around the web somewhere.
Can someone not post the cvs files? Are they not allowed?
As I mentioned in another topic, I manage a website that has flashcard tests in multiple modes based around the Practical Audio-Visual Chinese series (used by most schools here in Taiwan), I am selling subscriptions to the Providence Chinese website used by students studying Chinese at Providence University in Taichung.
The site is providencechinese.com
Subscriptions sell for $3000 NT / 3 months. It features a LOT of review exercises, typing tests, listening practice games designed by teachers and based around the Practical Audio-Visual Chinese series (books 1 to 4 of the new series). I recommend it more if you are already learning from that book (or want to review old material) since there is no teaching done - just review. The students currently using it seem quite happy.
If anyone at forumosa wants to try it out first, I’ll give you one week free trials. Just send me a message here with your first name, last name and email address and I’ll create an account for you.
Regards,
Adam