18,896 HSK sentences

leguan

探花
I'm planning to try using it for a while and see if the word selection suits me. One idea is that might be better to increase the number of sentences for HSK words, but I like to try guessing non-HSK words to so currently the number of sentences which use HSK words is only about 8000 out of the total of 23000.

Have a nice day (or night) too!
 

Shun

状元
Yes, I also think shorter sentences are more idiomatic, i.e. more natural, and easier to remember, and more useful for various situations.

Thanks! It's bright afternoon daylight here.
 

Dodoxo

举人
Thank for this amazing deck!
I've just started to test this but I've found out that the phrases are probably put in random order and not in an ascending order complexity. Is there some option to change this?
 

Shun

状元
Hi Dodoxo,

you're welcome! You're right, I trusted the file too much. I've just ordered the first file by length. Leguan's excellent list already only has relatively short sentences, so I guess I don't need to do the same with that.

If you change Card Selection > System to Fixed (and Created: ascending) it should take the cards in order, i.e. it should start with the simplest sentence.

Shun
 

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Bvo

探花
Mike, is there any date for new Flashcards beta?

For the last file from @Shun - why Pleco's word search doesn't work in FC?
Even for simplest words, it's impossible to select a word - char by char only.
I.e. in first two sentences I cannot select neither ganmao nor dianhua as a word. Only the way - select a word, copy it to Clipboard, go to Search Screen, paste, look.
Why?
 

Shun

状元
Hi Bvo,

if you import the file into a User Dictionary (when importing as flashcards), you can search. After having selected a word, you can tap the round arrow or the square with arrow in Android to see its definition.

Using sentences as flashcards is unorthodox. I'm sure a future version of Pleco will add some extra support for them.

Shun
 
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Bvo

探花
Hi @Shun,
it's not about search, it's about definitions. As I can see nothing can be searched in other ways, except one I described. No definition could be shown without that search.
May be importing to a user dict could help, but honestly, I give up trying to make current Pleco FC system work :)
Mike, I have only one request - do not leave users without an alternative, plz pay a big attention to let users use external readers and Flashcard systems.
 

Shun

状元
Sorry Bvo, I just told you above how to get definitions from a selection.
 
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mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
@Bvo - that's intentional; flashcards are mainly designed around words, sentences are as @Shun suggests a bit of a hack, and for words, since you're already viewing the definition we assume you're interested in drilling down into individual characters and so do that directly. Otherwise when you tapped on a word at the top of a word flashcard you'd simply get the exact same definition you were already looking at, which wouldn't be very helpful.

We can't support external flashcards on iOS because it's not really technically possible, and so we pretty much have to focus on doing the best we can in our own app. We don't mind supporting AnkiDroid integration on Android since it was relatively easy to do but I don't anticipate us spending a great deal more time on external flashcards until it's become clear whether there are any major needs our new flashcard system is incapable of meeting + can't easily be modified to meet. (it's not an exaggeration to say that you can copy Anki's algorithm *exactly* in our new flashcard system if you want to, right down to subtle things like showing sub-1-day-interval 'learning' cards first but greater-than-1-day-interval ones last, so I'm optimistic that once that's out people will see little reason to still want to use external flashcards)
 

Bvo

探花
@Shun,
thank you for all the help on this forum, but IMHO almost all functionality of the app requires some 'crutches'. I'm speaking not as a developer, but as a user. A customer (paid user). And as a customer I'm not satisfied. I spend too much time to learn the app and I still cannot accommodate it to my habits.
That's my impression/opinion.
I'm not indignant - may be I'm some kind of special users, but I hope someday I'll be happy with the app :)
But now I want to find a way to use it with other apps.
 

Shun

状元
@Bvo,
of course you're free to do so. I can't really speak for others, the app seemed really clean and well-structured to me, also version 3.2, but everyone has different thinking structures, don't they? Try to approach the app with patience, then you'll grasp it. :)
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Nope, we plan to pretty much drop it out of the sky one day. But it’ll probably be iOS-only at first in any case - most of the code is cross-platform C, but the bits that aren’t we’d rather not have to synchronize for every beta; better to nail it down on one platform before we port it to the other, and iOS sadly has far more Pleco users.
 

Bvo

探花
Yes, I have feeling that Pleco is more about iOS than about Android, too. Though I do understand why...
But that's it - perhaps the New FC will be out someday (somewhere somehow :)), perhaps next to "Pleco for Desktop" topic will be another one where we will discuss in 10 years who needs the New Flashcards System while there are more important things :)

As for
No definition could be shown without that search
- actually it's possible to use Screen Reader to make it work. Though using Pleco's Flashcards system is not required :)

Generally speaking, proceeding from realities of today I think that SR/OCR is a good way of "integration" (especially since it seems there still will be no others).
So I'm just waiting when it will be out from beta stage :)
 

岩恩

秀才
Hi Shun, first off thank you for taking the time to create and share these lists with all of us.
I just recently downloaded and imported this HSK list you made. I did not know exactly how to do it, so I just copied the link and opened it in Pleco's web reader which then automatically asked if I wanted to import, so I did and began studying.

As far as I can tell studying off the bat the sentences are not in chronological order, some very challenging ones right off the bat (I would say for sure HSK 6, I am at an HSK 5 level of Mandarin and seeing some words I have not yet come across) mixed in with simpler ones.

Is there something I have not done right in order to study in chronological order (HSK 1 to 6 or simplest to most complex)?
 

Shun

状元
Hi 岩恩,

you're welcome! That sounds to me like you downloaded the one on the left in message #1. The one on the right in message #1 is in ascending order of complexity. If you feel the sentences at the beginning of that list are still a bit too complex to guess, I recommend that you look at the following sentences:

https://plecoforums.com/threads/79-...apanese-and-spanish-sentences.5925/post-44918

If you download and unpack the zip file in that message, then send the tatoeba-cn-eng.txt file to Pleco and import, you will get pretty simple, but still idiomatic Chinese-English sentences, and further down in the thread, you can also download the Chinese-English contextual sentence flashcards invented by @leguan.

The HSK sentences start at perhaps HSK level 5. The Tatoeba sentences start at perhaps HSK level 3. If you split the category containing the HSK sentences up into smaller parts, make sure to choose "Sequential" splitting. This will keep the shortest sentences in the first couple dozen of split categories.

Hope this helps,

Shun
 
Would it be possible for you to upload a Traditional Chinese version? I'm very interested in this but am having trouble making the conversion in Pleco. Possibly because the sentences are written in the pronunciation field, so they are being overlooked by the batch command. Thanks so much!
 

Shun

状元
Hi zhongjiukuai,

there are about three ways to do this:

1. I tried running the flashcards text file through Google Translate, which would be the more error-free way because there is probably some intelligent algorithm at work that looks at the whole sentences. Too bad it only converts about the first 10 KB, after that the text file stays Simplified. Perhaps one would have to get a paid Google Cloud Platform subscription to convert files of any size.

2. Run it through Pleco. To accomplish this, all you need to do is switch the first and the second columns around and then choose Add Traditional headwords in Batch and switch the columns around again. Excel, LibreOffice Calc or another spreadsheet allows you to do this very easily. Then the quality of the Traditional text is quite good, though there are some errors because the algorithm is word-based, and Pleco wasn't really designed for converting entire sentences between Traditional and Simplified.

3. Use a free Python package, which unfortunately produces the worst quality results because individual characters are just being switched between Simplified and Traditional.

We can leave out 1 and 3, so 2 remains. I just tried number 2 with the file I had posted at the beginning of this thread. It works fine. Perhaps could you send me the file you'd like me to convert, as I sense you are interested in a different file. Or you could try it yourself using the method described above.

Cheers,

Shun
 

hoakma

Member
Thank you for your kind words. :)
I can make alternative versions if you have different parameters you prefer. e.g. number of sentences/word, which words are included as candidates, etc.
I was wondering if there was a way to make the cards more of a " fill in the blank" thingy. like instead of having the pinyin, you have a blank box, where you can type the character ( I will shamelessly admit that I am a big fan of typing instead of writing). as for knowing what word to put in the exemple english sentence should provide enough context.

Cheers and great work!
 

leguan

探花
I was wondering if there was a way to make the cards more of a " fill in the blank" thingy. like instead of having the pinyin, you have a blank box, where you can type the character ( I will shamelessly admit that I am a big fan of typing instead of writing). as for knowing what word to put in the exemple english sentence should provide enough context.

Cheers and great work!
Hi hoakma,

I'm not sure if it's possible. For the flash cards, I guess it is just a matter of replacing the Pinyin with blanks (or say underbar characters, etc. for better readability).

But, I'm not sure if Pleco has a test type that allows you to type the answer. (The fill in the blanks option seems to require use of handwritten entry using Plecos handwriting recogniser) Anybody else know if Pleco has such an option?

Just to be sure I understand correctly, do you mean you don't want to see the Pinyin at all. Rather you want to directly see the English translation as the hint?
BR
 
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