Dear all,
I’m trying to improve my Chinese vocabulary, and I know what would work well for me is to have somewhere I can store vocab that’s important to me and be able to test myself on it from time to time. I’m wondering if anyone knows of anything online that I could use.
Thanks!
Quizlet is free online.
If you have an iDevice, I use orangeorapple.com’s Flashcards Deluxe program. The developer studies Chinese, so it’s Chinese friendly in its functions.
That’s exactly what I’m looking for—thank you!
[quote=“ironlady”]Quizlet is free online.
If you have an iDevice, I use orangeorapple.com’s Flashcards Deluxe program. The developer studies Chinese, so it’s Chinese friendly in its functions.[/quote]
Better than supermemo?
I went to this program when I switched to iPhone. I don’t think there was a SuperMemo for iPhone at that point. Anyway, I haven’t noticed any significant drawbacks in Flashcards Deluxe. My main issue is that I never did manage to convert my original SuperMemo cards to any other format (and I had thousands of them).
Yeah I have about 3000 supermemo cards that can’t be converted either. I am going to try this new app as it looks really easy to make new stacks using Word.
But bloody iTunes won’t let me switch to my Taiwan credit card until I spend all the money left in the old account. But it’s too little to spend. HATE. APPLE.
Even worse in the “can’t convert” category, I’ve got a number of audio recordings from 2002-2004 that are in Voice YEPP format, and those cannot be converted either. Some of them are recordings of the Fujen Univ. Chinese orchestra I was in. Not terribly important, but I’d like to have them.
Anki, or ankiweb works well. If you want to export, you can export to txt.
ironlady, thanks. This is a great little program and really easy to upload new decks by text via their website.
Easy to add sound files and photos as well, if you like.
Anki 2 is in its final beta, if it isn’t in full release by now. It’s by far the best one out there. Failing that, there’s Anymemo.
Both were built from Supermemo, but Supermemo is sort of a relic of a bygone age in spaced repetition programs.
Almost everything else is trash. I could give you a laundry list of reasons why Quizlet, FlashcardExchange, FlashCardDB, Memrise, StudyBlue, and others bite such big ones, but just trust that I know what I’m talking about.
I’ve built a data set which can plug into any flashcard app, by the way, and I’m in the process of putting it on a website and letting people download the CSV’s for free. It has 20,000 terms or so (and reorderings to study the vocabulary in both directions), a CJK-and-frequency-ordered Hanzi study guide, and a ranked sentence database. In other words, it’s got more than enough.
Short of providing incrementally dissected sentences for grammar instruction, that’s about as far as spaced repetition programs can take you. For everything else, you’ll need real text and real people.
No sorry I don’t trust you know what you are talking regarding why the other programs are all shite. Care to offer your insights, in 50 words or less please?
Fair enough. Here are general failings:
[ul][li]poor import/export functionality,[/li]
[li]limited multimedia storage and addition,[/li]
[li]deck reordering problems,[/li]
[li]excessive complexity in the answer format,[/li]
[li]group compilation limitations,[/li]
[li]limited updating features or alerts,[/li]
[li]card deletion limitations[/li][/ul]
Anki has solved all but the deck reordering problem. That’s still a pain in the butt to do in Anki. However, it’s much more pliable than other sites and platforms allow.
I have not found Flashcards Deluxe (the orangeorapple.com product) to suffer from any of the aforetouted failings.
For the most part, these days, most flashcard programs have mostly the same features. It’s pretty much a matter of personal preference, and personal preference when tied to one’s language learning can be pretty emotional. People tend to champion their own choice and downplay others, but the differences are, for the most part, not great.
I have a question about anki. My flashcards are on Anki, but an older version. What will happen when I agree to update (which is asked every time I open Anki)? Will my older sets of cards be reordered? Lost? Lose their dificulty rankings?
I have a question about anki. My flashcards are on Anki, but an older version. What will happen when I agree to update (which is asked every time I open Anki)? Will my older sets of cards be reordered? Lost? Lose their dificulty rankings?[/quote]
No, there aren’t usually problems like that (and if there are, you have backups). However, your learning and review options will move into the new format, so you’ll need to customize some things from that end.
Beyond that, most of the other upgrades serve a minority of people who want to make really fancy decks with LaTex, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, multimedia additions, etc.
Thanks.
[quote=“Ex Animo”]… somewhere I can store vocab that’s important to me and be able to test myself on it from time to time. I’m wondering if anyone knows of anything online that I could use.
Thanks![/quote]
As the OP asked for online vocabulary services, here are two important and rather large Chinese vocabulary resources (plus two others) where you can have an account and run some testing activities, all online without having to download any app or software – and not pay a thing as they’re free! (I’m sure there are already quite a few paid services for learning Chinese vocabulary.)
A) The “Ting” vocabulary database at the University of Maine (so named because of its audio feature) is a huge resource of thousands of categorized words & phrases, with quite a few added-on capabilities. As it says on the homepage:
[quote]Once you add words and sentences to your account…
B) NCIKU is one of the biggest Chinese language websites out there, and of course it’s most well known for its dictionary; but it has a whole host of language learning tools to go with it, and a huge community of registered and active users to boot. You will see in the Vocab List section that there must be over a thousand vocab lists, mostly created by site users - which you can do too. You can also select “My Vocab Tests” from the dropdown menu, and there is also a hide/reveal testing facility for their extensive Theme Word lists.
C) Wordbuddy.com might be the type of free online service you are looking for, to save vocabulary and with testing capabilities. It’s described as an online vocabulary learning system (other languages as well, including Chinese), where you can generate your own vocabulary database, learn with a community, explore characters and radicals, make flashcards, and use a quiz system with spaced repetition.
D) There is another vocabulary learning website that includes Chinese, with a great name, Learningchocolate.com. It features over 60 categories of picture vocabulary (pitched at a younger audience), with a variety of interactive testing activities for each category – but there is no capability of making and saving your own vocabulary selection.
I obtained these Chinese learning resources from the Vocabulary section of this LearnchineseOK.com site of mine – there are well over 25 free online Chinese vocabulary resources there, including those from Yale University, Confucius Institute Online, China Radio International, the official Taiwan OCAC, and LanguageGuide.org; so some of those others might also prove helpful to you for learning your Chinese vocabulary. Happy vocabulary cramming!
I was reading through this thread and thought I would download Anki as it is free.
I then downloaded a shared character pack, but because it is a .apkg file, it will not open directly on my android phone if I download the pack to it.
There was mention online that I have to sync to my desktop but I have never synced my phone to the desktop previously.
Anyone know anything about any shortcuts to loading the flashcards to Anki?
There is a Google group for Anki if you have questions in the future: http://groups.google.com/group/ankisrs-users
Are you using Anki or Anki 2?
I have a character deck that I sorted by frequency AND CJK decomposition (meaning you’ll see 手 and 戈 before 我). PM me if you are interested.