Flashcards, example sentences; Getting set up as new paid user

BaneGlory

Member
SRS settings for learning new words? SRS settings for maintaining vocabulary?

I like the SRS built into Skritter. TOFULearn is okay. Pleco has infinite complicated settings and I'm told that the ultimate solution involves 2 or 3 different flashcard/ test and review settings. Can someone tell me how to do this?

On the example sentences of words, are these useful? Hate to say it but most of the tools made by learners are technically superior to Chinese native tools, but the example sentences are way worse and unnatural, according to what I've experienced/been told.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
What are you aiming to do? You only need to dig into the complicated settings if you're not happy with the defaults. If you just go into New Test and set "Profile" to "Spaced Repetition", that will give you a perfectly good SRS flashcard test right off the bat without any more tweaking.

In retrospect, not burying most of those options behind an 'expert mode' of some sort was probably a mistake, and we'll be correcting that in our next major update, but you really shouldn't need to tweak much to get it working acceptably well.

Example sentences: opinions on the examples in our free dictionary vary, but it's free; you can get many more examples in our paid add-on dictionaries, in fact you probably have some already if you bought one of our bundles.
 

BaneGlory

Member
So when I see discussions on Reddit there are huge lists given and consistently I hear tales of needing multiple sets of settings, https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/agyu27/_/eea1ize , and still with some words reviewed too frequently and some too rarely.

Indeed I do have more dictionaries, I was using the app TOFU learn and checking with a native speaker and I was told that *those* sentences were not natural at all. She warned that tools made by foreigners while they can be technically very sound and slick, can lack the quality native sentences and she mentioned a physical book that natives use, if younger natives, 小学生新华字典+新华成语词典(第2版) 套装2册 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018VE40PW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_plePCb4TRGDE8
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Ah, well certainly some people eventually find they'd prefer different intervals - can't be perfect for everyone - but that's something I'd suggest you wait to tweak once you've used it a bit if you feel that it's now reviewing words too often or not often enough, it's not something for which there's a particular set of settings I'd recommend initially because if there were better initial settings we'd use those as the defaults :)

Re examples: our free ones are from an old dictionary made in the PRC, so they're certainly native sentences, they just sometimes can sound a bit old-fashioned or have random awkward bits of socialist vocabulary. Thanks for the book recommendation.
 

BaneGlory

Member
No problem on the book mention, again it may be more accessible sentences as I'm more in the Elementary Intermediate range.

A user from reddit, LarryBills , said he asked here to figure out what SRS worked for him. Is that a familiar username? I searched "SRS" and didn't find the thread yet.

His response to me fwiw :
Hi there,
I did. I actually asked on the [https://www.plecoforums.com/](https://www.plecoforums.com/) since it's so complicated.

I'm really liking it as I have a few different tests set. (Chinese -> English; English -> Chinese)

Hint: you can set a new 'score file' for each test.
 

BaneGlory

Member
If there's a way to plug in settings so that it works like Skritter, I like their out of the box SRS settings, I would be sooooo happy.
 

BaneGlory

Member
Ah, well certainly some people eventually find they'd prefer different intervals - can't be perfect for everyone - but that's something I'd suggest you wait to tweak once you've used it a bit if you feel that it's now reviewing words too often or not often enough, it's not something for which there's a particular set of settings I'd recommend initially because if there were better initial settings we'd use those as the defaults :)

Okay thanks so much for your responses, I'll stop whining. I'm gonna probably try, 2 recommended settings from the Reddit user oppositeermine and perhaps the default too and see how it treats me
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
If there's a way to plug in settings so that it works like Skritter, I like their out of the box SRS settings, I would be sooooo happy.

We use the same basic algorithm as they do but I don't know which exact parameters they use.

Also, they may do what Anki does and use fixed steps for the first few reviews instead of going algorithmic from the get-go like Pleco (and the original SuperMemo app we're all taking inspiration from) do; that's not supported yet but will be supported in 4.0.
 
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