How helpful is having a tablet for Pleco?

tim0chen

Member
I'm considering buying a tablet just to use with Pleco. My Chinese is at the point where I can converse fluently and I would like to learn to read (and not write, since I can type with pinyin if I can read). I'm thinking the best way to do this would be by using the Pleco Reader to find words I'd like to learn, and then with Pleco flashcards to ingrain them into my memory.

I imagine that it'd be much nicer using Pleco reader on a 7" tablet than 4" phone. Are there any other advantages towards tablet use, and do you think it's worth the purchase for this alone?

Also, if anyone has tips for someone who can speak and would like to learn to recognize characters, I'd really appreciate them! Thanks!
 

Alexis

状元
On the tablet you can fit more text and/or have bigger text. The functionality is still the same. I don't know if it's worth the purchase for that alone, have to ask your eyes :)

If you're set on a 7" screen size, I'd wait for the 7" Retina iPad mini which will be introduced in 2013 (I assume you mean Apple products since you posted in the iPhone/iPad/Ipod Touch forum). Text is crystal clear on a Retina Display, even at a small font size.

iPad also had a couple of nice "Reader" apps (not in the Pleco sense where you can load anything, but books targeted at the Chinese learner): "Dim Sum Warriors" (comics with speech), and "Allset Learning Reader" (stories with speech). Both of these are designed for Chinese learners. iOS also has a ton of Children's bilingual mandarin/Chinese book apps if you like that sort of thing.

There's also the "Chinese Breeze" Readers. It's a great graded series for practicing reading with interesting stories. In the United States, you can also buy them for Kindle (or Kindle app on Android/iOS).

If you're interested in going through a book for learning to recognize characters, there's a good discussion of the available ones here: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/19969-heisig-vs-matthews. I am personally going through the Heisig books, and reviewing with SRS flashcards (mainly using Skritter, but if I wasn't worried about writing I'd stick to Pleco).
 
Just speaking personally here but the iPad version of Pleco hasn't been nearly as helpful to me as the iPhone version. I always have my phone with me, meaning I use it to look up and review words as I need to throughout the day. The iPad version, by comparison, doesn't get used much at all. Also the iPad version of Pleco is really just a "blown-up" version of the iPad app rather than one that has unique features and interface for the iPad.
 

tim0chen

Member
Hmm interesting. Thanks for the replies. You guys don't find the reader on the small iPhone screen annoying? I can't stand using the Kindle app on a phone...
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
justcharlie said:
Just speaking personally here but the iPad version of Pleco hasn't been nearly as helpful to me as the iPhone version. I always have my phone with me, meaning I use it to look up and review words as I need to throughout the day. The iPad version, by comparison, doesn't get used much at all. Also the iPad version of Pleco is really just a "blown-up" version of the iPad app rather than one that has unique features and interface for the iPad.

Interesting observation... we certainly need to do better in a few areas of iPad UI optimization (there are some things that ought to be popups rather than full-screen views, and others that ought to be two-panel like Settings) but I don't feel like in general there's a whole lot we could add in terms of unique features - is there anything specifically that you were thinking we ought to offer on the iPad, aside from a generally more information-dense UI?
 

Alexis

状元
mikelove said:
is there anything specifically that you were thinking we ought to offer on the iPad, aside from a generally more information-dense UI?

One thing that would be really nice is to show definitions from all dictionaries on the definition panel at the same time. The way AED (
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/advance ... 50206?mt=8 ) seperates parts of speech is an example of what might be a nice way to seperate the different dictionaries definitions.

Would also be nice to expand the definition panel size with a left swipe (and back to normal with a right swipe) (similar to how Mr. Reader works http://www.curioustimes.de/mrreader/index.html ). Or if averse to swiping, a button to collapse/expand the listing panel.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Alexis said:
One thing that would be really nice is to show definitions from all dictionaries on the definition panel at the same time. The way AED (
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/advance ... 50206?mt=8 ) seperates parts of speech is an example of what might be a nice way to seperate the different dictionaries definitions.

That one's definitely coming, in fact the dictionary search overhaul needed to do this well (and to do the same thing in search results, which is even trickier) has been our single biggest programming project over the past year. And should be supported on iPhone as well as iPad.

Alexis said:
Would also be nice to expand the definition panel size with a left swipe (and back to normal with a right swipe) (similar to how Mr. Reader works http://www.curioustimes.de/mrreader/index.html ). Or if averse to swiping, a button to collapse/expand the listing panel.

Swipe gesture could interfere with a bunch of other things so it would probably have to be a button... we actually did have one of those in our old Palm/WM app, but we haven't had many requests for it on iOS so I'm not quite sure if it's worth the programming effort (or the extra button when we're generally trying to have fewer of those) - might be easier to justify on the iPad Mini, though.
 
Much prefer ipad version. OCR works much better on it I think. Since getting the ipad I don't like using Pleco on iPhone if I can help it.
 

pravit

秀才
I find the iPad very useful with the Pleco reader app. Converting Chinese ebooks into plaintext format is a bit of a pain but it makes the book reading process much less painful - just tapping on words is way easier than manually looking them up while cradling a book in the other hand, although perhaps there's something to be said for repeatedly handwriting words wrt memory retention. I often wonder if I'm not trying hard enough to remember word meanings since I can look them up so easily.

It would be nice if Pleco reader could open PDF natively.
 
If you don´t have a tablet already, it does seem like an overkill just for using Pleco on it.
However, I have an iPad already. When testing myself using flash cards, I like to "write" the characters on the screen (pressing the "zi"-ikon in the top row) and I LOVE using the larger area provided.
It has become so that unless I really need to travel light, I take my tablet with me just for using Pleco on it, instead of on my phone only.
 

radioman

状元
Pleco with a tablet is awsome.

I basically took my books/documents and converted them to PNG files (several pages for each PNG file) and they all were thrown into the iPad. My understanding that this method of reading a document via OCR is along the lines of the PDF function that is hopefully going to be released. I helped another guy in class set up his iPad/Pleco to read pages like this and he could not believe how helpful this approach was (really...).

Now, the latest addition in my equipment line-up is the iPad mini - and it works great. The camera on it allows you to instantly take a picture of a document (e.g., a Chinese letter hanging on a wall), photograph it, and immediately be reading it. No need to covert over to a text file, you just read the PNG file via OCR, very natural, very fast. If the teacher handed out a work sheet, I could have it in the iPad in seconds.

I am aware of resolution challenges, but the mini has a higher pixel density than an iPad 2 (which I just wrapped up another semester using with no problems). And the battery life and portability more than make up for resolution shortcomings (from my perspective).

Finally, I have written about this before, but when in the classroom, using Pleco with Notability (one one iPad, but two is better if you have an old one laying around) is just great. You can handwrite notes right into Notability where it auto syncs to dropbox - all organized by class and date. No more paper notes. Class ends, I close iPad 1, close iPad 2, and I'm out.

Finally, I do have an iPhone that I also use to do quick dictionary lookups when Pleco on the iPad is busy looking at a document (I just find it easier than jumping out of the document).
 

Paul Duke

进士
Highly, highly, highly recommend a tablet for use with Pleco. The reader function is fantastic for graduating to reading higher-level study materials, and actual real-world Chinese materials. I made very little attempt to read Chinese novels and magazines before I got an iPad. After I bought the iPad I can put in half an hour to an hour each day reading real life Chinese materials with so much less pain and wasted time looking up characters by stroke count or radical. I bought an iPad in fall 2011, and just got an iPad mini this week (hard to get ahold of these things here in Beijing). I think I'll be reading even more on the mini because the size is just that much more convenient for carrying around casually. Also it's so much lighter that you can hold it in one hand comfortably. For reading absolutely up-to-date conversational Chinese, get the Weibo app (微博). It is very easy to copy content to the pasteboard reader in Pleco. There's NOTHING better than this method for learning the most up to date daily language and topics of conversation. I do use my iPad, and now my mini, for other things such as reading the news, etc, but I would say more than half of my iPad time is spent with Pleco in one way or another and it's really worth it. How I wish this technology had existed in the early 90s when I started learning Chinese!

If you have a Chinesepod subscription for learning Chinese you'll find that their files have the dialogue in the "lyrics" pane -- which you can then read as well in the Pleco "lyrics reader". Absolutely fantastic.

As for learning characters from scratch, there's no substitute for time and effort in writing them, testing yourself with flashcards, etc. My only recommendation -- based on the fact I learned Chinese 20 years ago when the most popular (and almost only) textbook was the Practical Chinese Reader which really was rather poor in its pedagogy;, ie the method of teaching characters wasn't very effective -- is to concentrate at the beginning on learning the radicals, and then proceed from there. That will make everything faster and easier, since the characters are in fact constructed of those 214 some-odd elements. If you learn the elements -- which are the Chinese "alphabet" in a way -- then learning the characters they are built with seems much much easier.
 

Paul Duke

进士
I guess I'll add one specific comment in response to your original post... You're going to have a very hard time learning to read without putting in at least some time writing in the first several months to a year or two. Unless you personally are extremely gifted in your visual sense, writing is necessary, especially at the beginning, in order to force yourself to pay careful attention to the differences between characters which have a lot of similarities in their appearance. For instance, 族游旅施旗旋. Good luck learning those -- all very common -- characters by sight alone...
 

radioman

状元
Fully agree with @Paul Duke - Learn Radicals, basically component pieces and then work up from there.

I also use 163.com's app for news (among others). It is easy to highlight an article and drop it Pleco via pasteboard.
 

mornir

Member
I was also considering buying an iPad mini for Pleco. I'm sure that a bigger screen is more convenient for reading, but I think it's not worth the purchase for that alone.
 

radioman

状元
I will say that the mini works very well, even with 8.5x11" docs - you need to put it in landscape and you can look at scanned doc pages at full width.

And its convenient - better battery life, etc.

I have had iPad 3s, and have iPad 1s and 2s, and a mini... If I could have one... I would go with the mini w/4G
 

radioman

状元
Well, I never had to contend too much with iPad 3 and 4 retina displays as I did not have my iPad 3 long enough to fall in love with the resolution.

But after some new postings of letters in the lobby of the building here (i.e., documents I need to quickly read and understand), and the subsequent and rapid viewing complements of my iPad Mini, I thought I would again reiterate my view of the iPad mini as a great tablet for use with Pleco. The camera works great for taking snapshots of letter and A4 sized docs that can immediately be OCRed.

And the mini is much less "unwieldy" than the larger iPads. I have other iPad 2s and they now seem monstrous. To the point that I will likely be selling the iPads and getting another mini as well.
 
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