How to configure flashcards to work intuitively like I use a physical deck of cards (and Wenlin)

[samstravels]

Hi there

Firstly, to say I love your app (both iPhone and iPad) - the dictionary is great, totally indispensable for looking up words, and the portability is obviously amazing compared to desktop-based dictionary (Wenlin) I used before. Pleco also looks and feels nicer and has a far slicker interface, and is more intuitive in almost all ways...

...almost...

...but. I really want to love the flashcard function - it has clearly been designed to be as customisable as possible but try as I might I can't seem to wrestle it into being as simple, intuitive and downright addictive as the programme that helped me effortlessly learn hundreds of characters a week (Wenlin).

What Wenlin does, by default, which Pleco doesn't seem to do (no matter what combination of 'weighted, spaced repetition, repetition-spaced(!!), filters, etc), is to allow me to study a batch of characters at a time (chosen, I think, from my full collection on some scoring system like yours so ones I know well seldom come up, but mainly focused on any new ones I've just added - but this isn't the key point), and crucially, when I get one right shelves it for that round, and keeps showing me the ones I haven't got yet until I get it, and the round ends when I run out of cards. So if there are a couple I'm really struggling with I just end up with them alternating at the end.

This is the way I've always done it with physical flashcards and know a lot of others do, and it's very powerful and simple: I have a stack that I go through, creating a pile of discarded ones that I've got right, rotating through a shrinking stack I am studying.

There are other reasons I will continue to use Wenlin alongside Pleco, but I would love to be able to use flashcards on the go and find them as effective. Any thoughts much appreciated - I'm conscious it may well be that the many settings allow this and I have just failed to figure out how!

Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[mikelove]

Actually, we do offer this feature - it's in the "Commands" section under "More Settings" at the bottom of the New Test screen. Turn on "repeat incorrect" and that will review your incorrect cards at the end, turn on 'loop' and (if you want) 'shuffle' under it and it will keep repeating them (with 'shuffle', in randomized order) until you get them all right.

 

[gato]

You can also create two different categories: one for new cards, another for review of already learned cards. You can set this category as the default category for adding flashcards from dictionary lookups in Settings->Flashcards. Once you've learned the new cards, you can then move them, using "Organize Cards", into the review category.

You can also use different scorefiles for different categories by creating a new test profile for each and selecting a different scorefile in New Test->Scoring.

 

[rhizome]

Is there a way of having pleco force you to answer correctly twice before removing the card from the deck?

 

[mikelove]

Not at the moment, but it's a good idea.

 

[HW60]

@mikelove: if you set Correct Scale Score Increase in Tweak parameters to a very high value (e.g. 20000%) and the Maximum Score to a very high value too (e.g. 200000), you will have a very high score after 2 correct answers, which is close to "removing the card from the deck" - or will this system change with 3.2?

 

[gato]

For learning new words, you can try this setting I suggested here:

http://www.plecoforums.com/threads/best-way-to-use-flashcards.3150/#post-25485
Card Filters - Score Filter
- Enable = On
- Range start = 1
= Range end = 100 [or whatever the highest score cards you want to study]

Card Selection
- System = Fixed
- Sort by = score
- Order = ascending
- Card is learned if score >=
- Amount = 200
- Prioritize by created

Scoring
- Scoring system = manual
- Configure Score
- Increase Enable = On
- Increase score = by
- Amount = 100
- If correct = 2
- Type = in a row

- Decrease Enable = On
- Decrease score = by
- Amount = 100
- If incorrect = 1
- Type = in a row

Score limits
- Enable = on
- Minimum score = 100

http://plecoforums.com/threads/flashcards-spaced-repitition-question.1809/#post-13380
Flashcards - spaced repitition question

 

[mikelove]

@HW60 - I interpreted rhizome's comment as referring to the "repeat incorrect" function specifically - wanting to have to get a card twice before it would exit the loop - rather than to longer-term SRS.

 

[rhizome]

@mikelove yes that's correct. This is how I used to do flashcards with physical flashcards: set incorrect ones in pile 1, correct in pile 2. take incorrect ones and set correct ones in pile 3, incorrect kept in pile 1. test pile 3, and only when you get them correct the second time move them to pile 2.

I guess what @gato suggests would work for that? i'll give it a try. Still working out how I feel about the automatic SRS before I start tweaking it...

 

[gato]

Profiles are a way to save settings so you can experiment. For example, you can have a "space repetition" profile and a "non SRS" profile, and in the non-SRS profile, you can try out the fixed order/manual scoring test settings I suggested above.

 

[Daisu Saikoro Nagasawa]

I have a question.on android i can limit the number of cards i see a day (basic setting - max number of cards). There doesnt seem to be an immediate analog on my gfs IOS system. Am i just missing something?

 

[mikelove]

Turn on "limit new cards" in New Test / Card Selection and you should see an option do that "by" "new per day." If it's not there, is she perhaps using a very old version of Pleco?

 

[Daisu Saikoro Nagasawa]

Turn on "limit new cards" in New Test / Card Selection and you should see an option do that "by" "new per day." If it's not there, is she perhaps using a very old version of Pleco?

Thanks for the reply. That setting is turned on and it limits her per day new cards but her overall review number is now near 400 using the SR option.

In other words every day shes limited to 20 new characters, but the total amount keeps rising. If that makes sense.

Btw... we both love the software and share it with all pur foreigner friends here in beijing,china.

 

[mikelove]

Ah, understood. That option disappears when you use Spaced Repetition testing, since in that case the system has a set number of cards it needs you to study in order to keep up with your memorization - if you have 40 cards due every day and you only review 20, then you're quickly going to find yourself forgetting everything because you'll accumulate a very long backlog and be waiting too long between reviews for each card.

If you want to keep using spaced repetition but get fewer cards per day, the quickest fix is to go into "Card Selection" and set "points per day" to 50 - that will double the time between reviews of each card. You could also try resetting the statistics for some of your cards (thus removing them from your study pool) and then using an option like that "limit new cards" one to slow down the pace of new card introductions.

Thanks for the word-of-mouth!

 

[sobriaebritas]

Actually, we do offer this feature - it's in the "Commands" section under "More Settings" at the bottom of the New Test screen. Turn on "repeat incorrect" and that will review your incorrect cards at the end, turn on 'loop' and (if you want) 'shuffle' under it and it will keep repeating them (with 'shuffle', in randomized order) until you get them all right.

I´d like to be able to review my incorrect cards not at the end of the session, but during the session, as Wenlin´s flaschards system does. Would it be that difficult to implement this option in Pleco´s?

 

[mikelove]

No, that's coming in the SRS revamp I think.

 

[Bendy-Ren]

You can also create two different categories: one for new cards, another for review of already learned cards. You can set this category as the default category for adding flashcards from dictionary lookups in Settings->Flashcards. Once you've learned the new cards, you can then move them, using "Organize Cards", into the review category.

You can also use different scorefiles for different categories by creating a new test profile for each and selecting a different scorefile in New Test->Scoring.

I do something similar, but with different test profiles.

I have one profile for introducing new words, where one of the criteria for inclusion is "times reviewed = 0." This one also has "repeat incorrect" and "loop" turned on, so the behavior is like what OP described.
Then I have another profile for spaced repetition, where there's a rule for "times reviewed > 0."

This lets me keep cards organized by different categories independent of whether or not they've been reviewed.