Flashcards
- Thread starter elipio
- Start date
HSK sentences deck
I just imported the (revised/fixed) HSK sentence deck from Pleco's Flashcard Exchange. However, when I open the deck for studying, only 4 cards will show up, regardless of any settings I tried to change. Does anybody have an explanation? Thanks in advance,
Regards,
Fluhkes
I just imported the (revised/fixed) HSK sentence deck from Pleco's Flashcard Exchange. However, when I open the deck for studying, only 4 cards will show up, regardless of any settings I tried to change. Does anybody have an explanation? Thanks in advance,
Regards,
Fluhkes
kohoutek - thanks! Sorry it took so long...
Vzzzbx - thanks! A lot of that is owing to our tireless beta-testers, particularly for the original Pleco 2.0 release on Palm/WM where a large portion of the design / feature set were fleshed out during that testing process (which took more than a year IIRC) - they really thought of everything.
Fluhkes - what kind of test are you doing? If it's "Fill-in-the-blanks," those only work for cards of 4 or fewer syllables, so for a sentence deck it's unlikely you'd get very many cards.
magicdave - it's available as a standalone module too, you can buy it through the "Add-ons" tab (scroll down in "Paid").
Vzzzbx - thanks! A lot of that is owing to our tireless beta-testers, particularly for the original Pleco 2.0 release on Palm/WM where a large portion of the design / feature set were fleshed out during that testing process (which took more than a year IIRC) - they really thought of everything.
Fluhkes - what kind of test are you doing? If it's "Fill-in-the-blanks," those only work for cards of 4 or fewer syllables, so for a sentence deck it's unlikely you'd get very many cards.
magicdave - it's available as a standalone module too, you can buy it through the "Add-ons" tab (scroll down in "Paid").
Hi Mike,
Pleco was already good, but with the addition of flashcards, is hands-down the best tool for Chinese language learning.
I think an extra mention to you and your team is warranted given the real effort and consideration you've given to developing a community of people to bolster the usability of Pleco, keeping the price more than reasonable (especially considering some electornic dicitionaries go for more than the cost of an iPod touch and full bundle). I sincerely hope that Pleco makes you all wealthy people and that you continue to expand and develop Pleco with the addition of other dictionaries, functions and features.
One request I would like to make. The colour-coded tone system is an excellent idea. I find it helps me to remember tones much better. When I set flashcard to use "headword" (in the self-grading mode) this gives me the Chinese characters, but not in colours. when I tap the "reveal card" button I then get definition, pronunciation and tone colours. This is great, but I'd personally like the colours displayed. Would it be possible to add another category of "tone colour" in addition to "headword", "pron", "def" etc.
The way I've set up the colours is Gold for 1st tone (Jin is pronounced first tone), Red for 2nd tone (Hong is 2nd tone), Purple for 3rd (Zi is 3rd) and Green for 4th (Lv is 4th tone). By being able to set "Headword and Tone Colour" as the categories, I can effectively kill two birds with one stone and supplement my revision of tone only.
Hope you think this is a good idea and can add something in a later update.
Best wishes and thanks again for Pleco.
Mike
Pleco was already good, but with the addition of flashcards, is hands-down the best tool for Chinese language learning.
I think an extra mention to you and your team is warranted given the real effort and consideration you've given to developing a community of people to bolster the usability of Pleco, keeping the price more than reasonable (especially considering some electornic dicitionaries go for more than the cost of an iPod touch and full bundle). I sincerely hope that Pleco makes you all wealthy people and that you continue to expand and develop Pleco with the addition of other dictionaries, functions and features.
One request I would like to make. The colour-coded tone system is an excellent idea. I find it helps me to remember tones much better. When I set flashcard to use "headword" (in the self-grading mode) this gives me the Chinese characters, but not in colours. when I tap the "reveal card" button I then get definition, pronunciation and tone colours. This is great, but I'd personally like the colours displayed. Would it be possible to add another category of "tone colour" in addition to "headword", "pron", "def" etc.
The way I've set up the colours is Gold for 1st tone (Jin is pronounced first tone), Red for 2nd tone (Hong is 2nd tone), Purple for 3rd (Zi is 3rd) and Green for 4th (Lv is 4th tone). By being able to set "Headword and Tone Colour" as the categories, I can effectively kill two birds with one stone and supplement my revision of tone only.
Hope you think this is a good idea and can add something in a later update.
Best wishes and thanks again for Pleco.
Mike
So far I really love the flashcard mode. I have spent money on many flashcard apps and this is the first one that has a mode where it gives me the definition of a character and asks me to handwrite it. It has almost everything I need, the only thing that would make it go from great to amazing in my eyes would be an option that asks you to copy the character/word when you get it wrong. So far when I don't know a character all I can do is to tell it I don't and the next time it appears I still can't remember it because I haven't had any practice writing it.
Hope that helps and thanks for making such a great software!
Hope that helps and thanks for making such a great software!
Hi All,
The new flashcard feature on IPhone is great.
2 Problems:
#1) I can't figure out how to download vocabulary from Chinese Pod. I follow the link on my IPhone through the Pleco "friendly Flashcard List Sources" screen to ChinesePod. But then what? It takes me to the ChinesePod website.... after this, what are the steps for downloading to my IPhone. Sorry if this has been explained before on this forum but I didn't see it anywhere.
#2) The flashcards are great but I have one major problem with the multiple choice answer micro font size. Is there any way the answer font size can be upped. When I view the question/headword at normal font, I then look to read the answer in micro font, repeatedly switching between the two causes me serious eye strain. After only a few cards, I'm done. My eyes are blown. Perhaps I'm getting too old but it sure would be great to have the option to make the multiple choice answers larger. I know the space may be limited, but unfortunately, right now, as it is, I can't use the multiple choice flashcards.
Thanks for your feedback
The new flashcard feature on IPhone is great.
2 Problems:
#1) I can't figure out how to download vocabulary from Chinese Pod. I follow the link on my IPhone through the Pleco "friendly Flashcard List Sources" screen to ChinesePod. But then what? It takes me to the ChinesePod website.... after this, what are the steps for downloading to my IPhone. Sorry if this has been explained before on this forum but I didn't see it anywhere.
#2) The flashcards are great but I have one major problem with the multiple choice answer micro font size. Is there any way the answer font size can be upped. When I view the question/headword at normal font, I then look to read the answer in micro font, repeatedly switching between the two causes me serious eye strain. After only a few cards, I'm done. My eyes are blown. Perhaps I'm getting too old but it sure would be great to have the option to make the multiple choice answers larger. I know the space may be limited, but unfortunately, right now, as it is, I can't use the multiple choice flashcards.
Thanks for your feedback
Re: Flashcards for ipod touch?
I just downloaded the complete bundle for ipod touch and did not get a flashcard module with that bundle. I tried to look for another way to download that module but I get a message that says that no new add-ons are available (but flashcards is also not one of the things listed in the list of my purchased items. Perhaps I am just not accessing the flashcards properly? I don't see any obvious way to do this.
Thanks.
I just downloaded the complete bundle for ipod touch and did not get a flashcard module with that bundle. I tried to look for another way to download that module but I get a message that says that no new add-ons are available (but flashcards is also not one of the things listed in the list of my purchased items. Perhaps I am just not accessing the flashcards properly? I don't see any obvious way to do this.
Thanks.
mikeygow - thanks! Showing tone colors in the headword is a little dicey because they can give away the Pinyin tones even if they don't give away the syllables - this seems a bit counterproductive to me since those are often the hardest part of the Pinyin to remember. But I suppose when you're still trying to remember the syllables you're not losing too much by seeing the colors - they'd just reinforce the tones better when you eventually learn them... so I suppose it could be an option in self-scored tests at least, just not fill-in-the-blanks or multi-choice since it would be a dead giveaway in those cases.
andry109 - on #1, ChinesePod seems to have recently redesigned their website and I haven't taken a good tour through it yet, but I believe it's done through the "Tools" tab (or whatever the rightmost tab is) - there should be an option there to export your personal vocabulary lists (which you can add any lesson's vocabulary to) to a Pleco format data file.
On #2, making that font size customizable is definitely on our to-do list; the big problem is that we really can't fit enough of the definition in to be useful if we're only showing one line of it per item (which we'd have to if the font size were any better), so we need to do what we previously did on Palm/WM and add an extra "confirm" step that shows you just the definition you tapped on and lets you confirm or cancel. Which we skipped in the first release since we were in a hurry to finish it.
Taipan - not quite sure what you mean... you can review all cards in the order in which they were added by setting "System" to "Fixed" in "Card selection" if that's what you're looking for; add a card filter to limit to to cards that have never been reviewed and that sounds like it might do what you're looking for.
Adding an option to review new cards that the system is about to introduce in a session at the start of a session is something we're planning for a future release - the whole idea of "unlearned" cards is fairly new to our flashcards system so we've been gradually evolving towards that point in the last few updates.
NER - that's odd... are you sure you have the latest version of our software? Go to the Settings tab and tap on "About" - is the version 2.1.0? If not, update the software through the "Add-ons" tab and you should then have access to flashcards. If you're already running 2.1.0, PM me with your Registration ID and I'll check that you've been credited with your flashcard purchase correctly.
andry109 - on #1, ChinesePod seems to have recently redesigned their website and I haven't taken a good tour through it yet, but I believe it's done through the "Tools" tab (or whatever the rightmost tab is) - there should be an option there to export your personal vocabulary lists (which you can add any lesson's vocabulary to) to a Pleco format data file.
On #2, making that font size customizable is definitely on our to-do list; the big problem is that we really can't fit enough of the definition in to be useful if we're only showing one line of it per item (which we'd have to if the font size were any better), so we need to do what we previously did on Palm/WM and add an extra "confirm" step that shows you just the definition you tapped on and lets you confirm or cancel. Which we skipped in the first release since we were in a hurry to finish it.
Taipan - not quite sure what you mean... you can review all cards in the order in which they were added by setting "System" to "Fixed" in "Card selection" if that's what you're looking for; add a card filter to limit to to cards that have never been reviewed and that sounds like it might do what you're looking for.
Adding an option to review new cards that the system is about to introduce in a session at the start of a session is something we're planning for a future release - the whole idea of "unlearned" cards is fairly new to our flashcards system so we've been gradually evolving towards that point in the last few updates.
NER - that's odd... are you sure you have the latest version of our software? Go to the Settings tab and tap on "About" - is the version 2.1.0? If not, update the software through the "Add-ons" tab and you should then have access to flashcards. If you're already running 2.1.0, PM me with your Registration ID and I'll check that you've been credited with your flashcard purchase correctly.
I can understand andry109's frustration with his attempts to download Chinesepod's vocabulary files. As you indicated, the Chinesepod WEB site creates a formatted XML file from the TOOLS menu and downloads it to my computer. iTunes does not do XML files. I can copy this XML file to MobileMe's iDisk but can do nothing with the file on my iPhone because iDisk/iPhone does not savy the XML file format. If I go to the Chinesepod WEB site with Pleco's built-in WEB browser and attempt to download the file, I get the text without the XML formatting on the screen, but no indication the Pleco software recognizes the data as a file download. Is the only viable option to buy the hardware necessary to put up a wireless network to use the "download for your computer" option in the Flashcard module?
Can the technically challenged users among us get a little more user friendly explaination of the opptions available to us for uploading Flashcard files to the Pleco App? Those of us that are especially backwards might appreciate a tutorial.
I am otherwise very pleased with your excellent product. If/when overcome my ignorance and can upload files, I plan to buy an iPad (my old eyes ain't what they used to be) for the larger screen. Is your iPad port using the increase in real estate natively or simply doing 2X the iPhone?
Can the technically challenged users among us get a little more user friendly explaination of the opptions available to us for uploading Flashcard files to the Pleco App? Those of us that are especially backwards might appreciate a tutorial.
I am otherwise very pleased with your excellent product. If/when overcome my ignorance and can upload files, I plan to buy an iPad (my old eyes ain't what they used to be) for the larger screen. Is your iPad port using the increase in real estate natively or simply doing 2X the iPhone?
Sorry about that. ChinesePod seems to have made some changes that have made it difficult for us to intercept the file download before it hits the web browser - we're working on a fix, but for right now your best bet is to wrap the file up in a .zip archive before you upload it to iDisk (use the built-in OS X "Compress" command) - do that and it should let Pleco download it just fine.
A tutorial should be forthcoming once we get past a few bug fixes... and yes, our iPad version uses native resolution so everything is nice and big / detailed.
A tutorial should be forthcoming once we get past a few bug fixes... and yes, our iPad version uses native resolution so everything is nice and big / detailed.
Mike,
Still beating my head against the wall trying to download vocabulary from Chinesepod to Pleco. I have moved both 1.0 and 2.0 formatted files to the Pleco app, but in each case the downloader strips formating from the files. For 1.0 formatting, the <tab> and <cr> characters seem to have been deleted, so I get one big flashcard with all the vocabulary included. For 2.0 formatting, all the XML and the <cr> characters seem to have been deleted and, again, I get one big flashcard with all the vocabulary included. It looks like I will have to try the wireless server route.
I am going to Chengdu for a couple of months at the end of the week. I was looking for an iPad, but all the Apple stores and all the Best Buy stores in the area are out of stock of all iPads of any flavor. Bad news for me, but possibly good news for you as the potential user base is growing. There may be stock available toward the end of the week.
Still beating my head against the wall trying to download vocabulary from Chinesepod to Pleco. I have moved both 1.0 and 2.0 formatted files to the Pleco app, but in each case the downloader strips formating from the files. For 1.0 formatting, the <tab> and <cr> characters seem to have been deleted, so I get one big flashcard with all the vocabulary included. For 2.0 formatting, all the XML and the <cr> characters seem to have been deleted and, again, I get one big flashcard with all the vocabulary included. It looks like I will have to try the wireless server route.
I am going to Chengdu for a couple of months at the end of the week. I was looking for an iPad, but all the Apple stores and all the Best Buy stores in the area are out of stock of all iPads of any flavor. Bad news for me, but possibly good news for you as the potential user base is growing. There may be stock available toward the end of the week.
mikeygow said:
That's exactly what I mean. I find that learning tones is the hardest part, but made much easier by looking at colour-coded hanzi and then saying them out loud. For example when I see the character 你, I no longer have to think which tone it is, I just know how to pronounce it.
Adding a tone colour category to self-scored tests is definitely a good idea, especially as it can be turned on/off by the user. And I notice someone else also asked for it a while back on Pleco 1.
Taipan - yes, seconds are included in "created" dates. Try turning off the "Limit unlearned" option in "Card selection" - does that help matters any?
laodie - what if you go right back after one of those downloads and try downloading the same file again; does that make any difference? We're trying to figure out a way to improve on this situation for the 2.1.1 update - we may actually have to add a special workaround to check for / specially handle ChinesePod links - but in the meantime, if you download the file from your PC and then upload it to your iPhone it should work just fine in Pleco.
And they just started taking international preorders for the iPad, so the availability situation may get even worse before it gets better. Apple's oft-mercurial search algorithm has finally seen fit to put us in the #1 slot for "chinese dictionary" on iPad at least, a spot we're very much hoping we'll get to hang on to, though we're still buried down around #15 on iPhone for some reason, in spite of the fact that our "top grossing" ranking is higher than any other title in the list and our "top free downloads" ranking is higher than all but one of them. (this is all in the US store, but that's the dominant one sales-wise)
mikeygow - I think this might end up being an on/off switch in "Test Settings" rather than a new option in "Show," actually, since that list is already rather confusingly long (and I continue to believe that the list is preferable to on/off switches, particularly for fill-in-the-blanks / multi-choice tests) - in fact we may take audio out of it and put that in "Test Settings" too at some point.
laodie - what if you go right back after one of those downloads and try downloading the same file again; does that make any difference? We're trying to figure out a way to improve on this situation for the 2.1.1 update - we may actually have to add a special workaround to check for / specially handle ChinesePod links - but in the meantime, if you download the file from your PC and then upload it to your iPhone it should work just fine in Pleco.
And they just started taking international preorders for the iPad, so the availability situation may get even worse before it gets better. Apple's oft-mercurial search algorithm has finally seen fit to put us in the #1 slot for "chinese dictionary" on iPad at least, a spot we're very much hoping we'll get to hang on to, though we're still buried down around #15 on iPhone for some reason, in spite of the fact that our "top grossing" ranking is higher than any other title in the list and our "top free downloads" ranking is higher than all but one of them. (this is all in the US store, but that's the dominant one sales-wise)
mikeygow - I think this might end up being an on/off switch in "Test Settings" rather than a new option in "Show," actually, since that list is already rather confusingly long (and I continue to believe that the list is preferable to on/off switches, particularly for fill-in-the-blanks / multi-choice tests) - in fact we may take audio out of it and put that in "Test Settings" too at some point.