Flash Card Software

I’d like to create my own flash cards and I’m wondering if any of you out there know of a good flash card program that can input Chinese.

I’m interested in putting characters on one side (repeated with different fonts) and the same characters on the other side with zhuyin (bopomofo) and English (if appilcable). So far, I’m tracking characters on an Excel spreadsheet and at around 500 characters now along with a couple of hundred compound words, it’s starting to get cumbersome.

Is there such a thing as flash card ready (perforated) paper?

If that’s all you want to do, I’d use Word, set it up to print some size of stickers (there are preset Avery sticker templates in Word for printout) and then use the merge print feature to suck your data out of Excel and onto a template you set up. Cut the cardstock apart with a paper cutter and Bob’s your uncle.

On my PC I use Vtrain and on my PDA I use Supermemo. They’re not free, but I highly recommend both. Both may have an evaluation period though. They are easy to find - just Google them.

I think the OP was looking for hard-copy output, though. The Word method would allow you to keep your “database” in Excel and still be able to output it to hard-copy cards whenever you wanted to (in part or in full).

Thanks ironlady and NeonNoodle. Both are very good suggestions.

I am looking for a hard copy output. A little while ago, I read on this forum about a system with flash cards which separates them into separate piles that are to be reviewed daily, weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, etc. Flash cards are also portable and one can make handwritten notes on it or draw little pictures on it, basically, annotate it as necessary.

However, it looks like Vtrain is a very capable program with a lot of flexibility. I don’t own a PDA so Supermemo is out of the question. NeonNoodle, does Vtrain have a good print function?

[quote=“sjcma”]Thanks ironlady and NeonNoodle. Both are very good suggestions.

I am looking for a hard copy output. A little while ago, I read on this forum about a system with flash cards which separates them into separate piles that are to be reviewed daily, weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, etc. Flash cards are also portable and one can make handwritten notes on it or draw little pictures on it, basically, annotate it as necessary.

However, it looks like Vtrain is a very capable program with a lot of flexibility. I don’t own a PDA so Supermemo is out of the question. NeonNoodle, does Vtrain have a good print function?[/quote]

I believe VTrain’s printing function is rudimentary. You can adjust paper and card margins. You can adjust the height and width of the flashcards to fit more or less on a page. You can also print a page full of fronts, a page full of backs, a page with a column of front and a column of matching backs or duplex, which I suppose is double-sided (but I am not certain).
Before I began using Supermemo I had prepared all of TLI’s first book in an excel file and was planning to print them out double-sided on my laser printer on heavy paper. I did in fact print out the first few chapters and they looked great, but with a slight problem - the paper isn’t cut at perfect right angles so they didn’t match up as well as I had hoped. I was resigned to dealing with that imperfection, but then I quickly found out that cutting up these cards was quite time-consuming. Anyway, I am glad that I use Supermemo because it better manages the cards I need to review than I ever could. Likewise when I was using VTrain regularly.
That system of piles that you review daily, weekly, monthly, etc. sounds an awful like VTrain. I guess if you are a well-organized person flashcards can be manageable. I wish you luck in whichever solution you find and I hope you enjoy studying Chinese!

Yeah, that’s one concern with the do-it-yourself cutting method. I think what I’ll do instead is to buy sheets of blank stickers and print the front/back sides on those; then, apply these stickers onto index cards. I guess I’ll download the trial version of VTrain to see how it prints; else, it’ll have to be Word.

That’s why VTrain looks attractive to me. If it handles printing well, I think I’ll go with VTrain.

I’m actually making these flash cards for my son. Does he enjoy studying Chinese? Well, he has no choice…haha :smiling_imp: I’m teaching him how to read and so far, we’ve been huddling over the computer monitor to review characters. When it was only a couple of hundred characters, I could still remember which ones we’ve reviewed and which ones are new. But with over 500 now plus compounds, I’m starting to get lost. I would also like to use hard copy flash cards so we can get away from the computer and into a more comfortable setting. This way, we can read a few pages of a story book, review flash cards, and do some ㄅㄆㄇ practice writing without needing to move to the computer.

I’d buy him a cheap PDA and use SuperMemo, if he’s old enough to do the self-rating function it requires. But the stickers also sound like a fairly good option if you can’t get a paper cutter (which gives you perfect right angles every time).

Thanks ironlady. I think getting him a PDA will have to wait as he’s only 4 1/2 years old right now. Maybe when he turns 5. :wink:

CUECARD is freeware and is really a great programme! But it has no international support, so you will use it only for Pinyin… If you need to know more, then email me.

Thanks for the suggestion glenclif1969. Free is always nice; alas, I’m using strictly characters and bopomofo (no pinyin). I’ll still check it out though to see if there’s been any recent updates.

There’s a great website called flashcardexchange.com that has acts as a user-generated pool of flashcards on any topic. It’s free to use and if you put down a tiny fee for life-time membership, they lay-out the cards to any specs you determine to print to paper via Word/PDF. I think the options available are incredible and you can of course, always just learn from flashcards put up by other ppl. If you have an electronic device like a PDA or a PSP, you can easily carry around JPG images of these.