Some of you on Forumosa will be acquainted with Truant’s Chinese Flashcards, which have been used by many students of Mandarin to improve their vocabulary and help them through the Practical Audio-Visual Chinese series. Now Truant and I are working together to put the flashcard project on a more professional footing - we have a new name, a new website and new plans for the future.
For those of you who don’t know what we are doing here, you can see the old thread containing the history of Truant’s flashcards for a bit of backstory. We make quality Chinese flashcards for the Practical Audio-Visual Chinese series, which is the series used by most Mandarin language schools in Taiwan. The cards are name-card sized (90 x 56mm), black and white, double-sided and printed on 180gsm card:
We still have a lot of work to do on the website and we’ll be constantly improving it and adding new features over the next couple of months. Feel free to leave any comments and feedback here in this thread, or alternatively you can PM myself or Truant. We’re back in business for flashcard sales and although we’ve raised the price of a set a touch (to cover increasing commodity prices, particularly card) we are offering Forumosans the chance to buy sets at the old price of NT$1,200 until the end of August. Again, PM us for details…
No, they’re made from real silk. And placed in a jewel-encrusted box. And hand-delivered to you by Miss Chinese Taipei 2007.*
*offer not valid in all areas, please phone for details. Your call may be monitored for training purposes, and the nefarious heavy-breathing needs of irishstu.
Silkworm flashercards are PEOPLE!
The thing I notice the most is that the numbers are not clear, as the cards are covered in all those daft Chinee squiggles. How are people supposed to know the score given to a particular flasher if you hold up one of those things up and all you can see is “ching chong chang”?
Serious question: If, let’s just say for the sake of pure conjecture, a moron were to shell out for these dongxis, would he or she be able to make any real progress in the laarnin’ of the silly Chinee squiggle lingo, or would he or she also need to buy the books, or – horrors – have to also employ a teechur?
I’m – I mean – a “friend” is keen on buying a set, but the laerning will need to be basically osmosis. Maybe if “my friend” were to swallow them, the information would stick? Are they flavoured?
[quote=“sandman”]Serious question: If, let’s just say for the sake of pure conjecture, a moron were to shell out for these dongxis, would he or she be able to make any real progress in the laarnin’ of the silly Chinee squiggle lingo, or would he or she also need to buy the books, or – horrors – have to also employ a teechur?
I’m – I mean – a “friend” is keen on buying a set, but the laerning will need to be basically osmosis. Maybe if “my friend” were to swallow them, the information would stick? Are they flavoured?[/quote]
We could do a custom flavoured set for you, Sandy. Should each card taste of the object you’re supposed to be learning? What flavour would we have for “future”? Or “practical”? I suppose we could just use loganberries for those seeing as no-one knows what loganberries taste like anyway.
I think the best way to use the cards is in conjunction with the textbooks. Beyond a few introductory lessons to help with pronunciation I never bothered with teachers, and after five years I can now order a pint in fluent Mandarin! I think for many people having a teacher is going to be the best way, but for others (like me) you can make good progress with some free time and a bit of elbow grease.
As far as osmosis is concerned, I generally prefer the stick-them-under-the-pillow-while-you-sleep method.
They’re a bit like raspberries. A bit sharper, usually.
Anyway, if you or the Truant could hold a set back for me, I’d appreciate it. No hurry. I don’t expect I’ll ever actually get around to using them. Although you never know. Maybe by this time next year I’ll have achieved my dream of becoming a Taiwanese lady TV newsreader.
Ever considered using two types of fonts on these flash cards? The Kaishu font that you use now and the more squarish Ming fonts used in books, newspapers, and dictionaries, both on the same side. I teach Kaishu font to my son most of the time but notice that sometimes he has trouble deciphering the same characters in the widely used Ming font. So I’m making up flash cards for him that has both on the same side.
Interesting idea. We went with Kaishu because that’s what they use in the textbooks, but I take your point about the different forms. I’ll give that some thought…
and it seems like the cards are arranged so that only the chinese character is on one side and the pinyin and English is on the other. Is there a way so that the chinese character and pinyin is on one side and the english on the other side?
Ah, that’s the link to the old website, with some outdated information on there. The new site is at silkwormpress.com - and the current cards we are using look like this:
…which I think is exactly what you’re asking for.
Just over a week left on the Forumosa introductory offer (NT$150 off per pack), so get your order in quick!
i may buy some, since I’ve got rappy ones right now. what would make them more ace (and I know it’s there on the bopomogo but…) is if you could indicate the tone somehow…like possibly making them colour coded?
You know what I mean? I different colour for each of the four tones? I think it would be an easy way to learn the character AND the tone at the same time using two parts of your brain…
I was so proud of my set of flashcards I bought from truant a few years ago. However, when I went back to SA once and collected my luggage in Cape Town, I found my bag torn and 90% of my cards strewn all over the show. I’ve been trying to get a new set ever since. Are they available again?
