I think Supermemo is the fastest way to learn characters.
Really I do, but I made this thread to help people set it up on their palm, not to hype up Supermemo (too much ).
First take a look at www.supermemo.com to get an idea about how supermemo works.
Then go to www.mapletop.com to purchase your copy of supermemo for the palm.
Next you have to choose a Chinese OS for the palm. I just got done testing these three. dyts.com/en/ (the CJKOS that many people are familiar with) youbesoft.com/ (came pakaged with my palm) pd.com.tw (Palm Dragon)
Iāve been using the YouBeSoft package for almost three months now. Today I tried those other 2 OSās and it turns out that Palm Dragon is the best looking of the 3. So good looking that Iām going to buy that one even though YouBeSoft came free. CJKOS looked the worst. I tested the three softwares on a Tungsten T, so maybe the others look better on different versions of Palm (but Iāve read the Palm Dragon really is the best looking). You can test CJKOS and PD for free (not sure about UBsoft).
If you need help installing Palm Dragon (because it lacks English instructions) see: www.geocities.com/palmroc/palm_dragon.html (these setup instructions are for an older version of the software, but they were still helpful for me)
After youāve bought Supermemo and installed a Chinese OS, the only thing left to do is create a database of flash cards which is really easy to do.
A few more things. CJKOS version 4.27 does NOT work for OS 5. But I did find a link to the beta version thatās OS 5 compatible. I had no problem getting the beta version to work. Heās a quote from www.palmgear.com
[quote]02-Mar-03 by Andrew Archie
Iāve requested through email for a link to the Palm OS 5 version for my Tungsten T and to my surprise a reply was responded on the same day. It works well for my GB needs. It even auto display my mp3 filename in GB with aeroplayer. For benefit of all here is the link to the beta version zztechs.com/longrand/cjkos45_retail_0102.zip[/quote]
I do remember that the YouBeSoft Chinese OS does have a free trial period.
Iād also like to hype up supermemo some more. A friend of mine said Chinese has the most idioms of any other language. For you advanced Chinese learners you could use Supermemo to make a database of Chinese idioms.
Another side note, CJKOS stands for Chinese Japanese Korean OS. So for those of you interested in learning Japanese or Korean as well, that might be the OS for you.
Can anyone help me figure out how to register/buy Palm Dragon? I clicked through all of itās webpages and could find a price or a way to register it.
You might be right, but the only thing Iām using the Chinese OS for is learning characters with Supermemo. Palm Dragonās Characters look MUCH clearer then YouBeSoftās characters in Supermemo. I canāt comment on anything outside of that.
I aslo think the Pen input thingy that comes with Palm Dragon is better then the YouBeSoft one ( www.penpower.com.tw ).
But in the end Iām just choosing PD because of how good the characters look in Supermemo.
I was interested to see you comment about how āgoodā the characters look in Supermemo.
I bought Supermemo recently, but Iāve found the program to be un-useable because the resolution of the flashcard screen is so low that you lose all the detail of the characters, and so many are unrecognisable.
I have a Sony PDA with a high-resolution (320x320) screen, but the Supermemo flashcard display only uses the original Palm resolution of 160x160.
I checked with the company that wrote it and they said there is no way to change this as a user. From what they told me, a new version to fix this isnāt likely to be released anytime soon.
In the end I have reluctantly switched to another flashcard program called Anki (www.anki.com). It isnāt as good as Supermemo, as you have to create your flashcards on a PC first, and it doesnāt have the āintelligentā memory/testing of Supermemo, but at least you can recognise the characters!
They appear to be changing the name to HandDragon.
(The previous URL points to a some kind of printer.)
Only downside of Palm/HandDragon is that the installation is in Chinese, so if youāre a newbie then you might need a chinese reading friend to help you install it (and you will need a chinese font installed on your PC.)
Other than this, Iāve found it a very good program.
It would be nice if it could use the memorystick to store some of its databases.
This is how I work it. With the Palm Dragon/Hand Dragon, I would say that the characters look good enough to practice with it without using the below decribed method.
But if you still think the small crappy factor is too large, when youāre testing or drilling, you can tap on the screen to get the card edit screen and look at the character in there. If you have a high rez PDA the character should look really nice. Just cover up the answer and look at the character in the edit screen, Thatās what I did when I was using the UBsoft version. But I can honestly say that with the Palm/Hand Dragon software, the characters look good enough not to do that. But I would suggest testing everything before you decided to purchase. Supermemo and all of the Chinese OSās have free trials, then a person can see for them selves if it will help them (or not). Since Iāve started using it I have had an average of about 10 new vacobulary words a day (not characters), I think Iāll be able to push that number up to 20, maybe even thirty when I start serious study.
If youāre talking about the character databases, I think you can (with Palm Dragon). It seems like it from the looks of the option screen. I know you can with CJKOS.
Iāve just installed Palm Dragon, Supermemo, and the Oxford C-E dictionary and it seems like 1) itās not possible to open both the dictionary and Supermemo at the same time, which would be really useful when making cards, and 2) if I copy an entry from the dictionary and paste in Supermemo, the characters get all screwed up. Any ideas?
First, you canāt open ANY two Palm apps at the same time. Thatās because of the structure of the Palm OS. You can switch back and forth pretty easily if you assign both programs to a āhot buttonā (Iāve got the Oxford Dictionary on the ācalculatorā silkscreen button, and Supermemo on the āTo Do Listā button, for example. That makes it quick to go back and forth. I have gotten the occasional āchunk overlockā error message, usually when switching repeatedly between these two, in the past, but a soft reset takes care of that.)
The new version of the Oxford Dictionary has a built-in flashcard function which isnāt bad. I donāt believe the algorithm is as robust as Supermemo for learning purposes, but itās something.
I also get the ācharacter screwup when pastingā. Probably you have your OS set on BIG-5 and Oxford is based on GB codeā¦?? I think thatās what causes it. Anyway havenāt found any way around it yet. I just re-key or re-write the characters, figuring that thatās āhealthyā anyway.
Here are some screen shots of how supermemo looks when using Chinese characters. You can decide for yourself if itās worth paying for or not. The way the characters look does vary depending on the Chinese OS you install. The one shown is Palm Dragon.
I wonder if anyone here could help me out with a palm related question? Iāve set up some flashcards in the oxford dictionary but I donāt seem to be able to edit the entry. The whole dictionary entry comes up for each character but Iād sometimes like to delete some of it or change it. Can anyone tell me how to do that?
Also, I donāt suppose anyone knows of anywhere I could get hold of an electronic version of the HSK vocab lists?
[quote]I wonder if anyone here could help me out with a palm related question? Iāve set up some flashcards in the oxford dictionary but I donāt seem to be able to edit the entry. The whole dictionary entry comes up for each character but Iād sometimes like to delete some of it or change it. Can anyone tell me how to do that?
Also, I donāt suppose anyone knows of anywhere I could get hold of an electronic version of the HSK vocab lists? [/quote]
Iād say just use Supermemo. Itās a little more trouble to copy entries from the dictionary, but gives you more flexibility about what to put on the card. And of course itās more intelligent and super cool.
Thanks for your replies. Now that Iāve checked the manual properly it turns out that you can edit the entry - or at least delete the unwanted bits. I will try out supermemo anyway though, as itās got such good reviews.
Well, I tried the supermemo trial, and I liked it so much I bought it. But now I have another question. Is there any way I can transfer the flashcard sets I have already set up in the Oxford dictionary to supermemo ā¦ or do I really have to type the whole lot in again?
Also, I have tried importing databases from a text file, but the Chinese words just come out as question marks (although the English text comes through ok). I donāt have a real chinese input package set up on my pc (just a little microsoft internet explorer language pack). Do I need to install something better? (Iām using CJKOS on the palm, by the way.)
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