Methods for memorizing characters

digires

Member
What methods do people here use to memorize characters? Has anyone found one way more effective than another?

John
 

mengzhu

Member
memorizing characters

Well, it might sound like brute force, but I find that if I can write it, I can remember it.

When learning new characters, I write them on these great little memory cards that you can find here in Taiwan. They are about 1/3 the size of a business card, and held together with a little metal ring. Usually about 30-40 on a ring. I write the characters on one side, pronuncation and meaning on the other.

I keep them in my pocket and take them everywhere. Whenever I have a spare moment, waiting for the bus, riding the subway, waiting for food, I take them out. and run through them. Make up sentences with them. say the word over and over until my tongue is numb. You woudl be suprised at how much time you can find to work on memorizing while you are waiting in line etc.

the cards also draw the attention of the locals, who often strike up a conversation. Then you can practice your speaking too.

Finally, as I said, if I can write it, I can remember it.
Have fun!
 

NENGSHOU

Member
SuperMemo...

There is a huge community here that is using Supermemo (Supermemo.com) to memorize chinese characters.

It is an electronic flashcard program, automatically giving you the words that you don't know more often, till you test out. It has daily drills. AWESOME. For myself and the 10s of people here thatuse it, it has dramatically increased our learning.

Used in conjunction with WenLin for the PC for the definitions, I paste the chinese character as the question, then the english and usage below, and paste another card as the english definition, with the chinese and usage as the answer. GREAT TOOL!
 

mai

秀才
Chinese database for Palm

Hi Nengshou,

I have already heard a lot about Supermeo and I'd like to try it on my Palm. problem is that I can't find any chinese databases that will work with the Palm version of Supermemo. Maybe you know more about it.

So far I have been using Anki. Is it somehow possible to convert my databases to use it with Supermemo?

Thanks,
Mai
 

NENGSHOU

Member
Databases

I really don't know anything about that other program.

Tried Supermemo for Palm but didn't use it because my main learning is on my computer... Don't know what to recommend.

It's always better to create your own databases and add things as you go. Supermemo.com also encourages this.

Practically all of us here in China where I am have our own databases we've created ourselves. It's worth the trouble. Takes some more work, but you'll learn faster - I guarantee it.
 

Rafael

秀才
Based on the good reviews I read in this thread I bought Supermemo for Palm, installed it on my Clie PEG SJ-33/U and started to input vocabulary.

However, any Chinese characters I put into the question field have terrible resolution when they appear on the cards.

Making them double-width and double-height seems to make them worse.

Anyone found a way to improve the resolution on the cards?
 

gandq

探花
resolution

hi,

i am fooling around with supermemo at the moment and i found the following answer regarding the horrible resolution when displaying chinese characters on their website:

From Supermemo's FAQ:

* Foreign characters are illegible on hi-res devices?

This is a result of incomplete font installation. You need to install both hi-res (320x320) and low-res (160x160) fonts.

If you use SuperMemo to learn a language with non-English characters (e.g. Japanese, Chinese, Korean) then you need some 3rd party font tool to be able to display these characters. Often there is an option to install hi-res fonts, low-res fonts or both. As SuperMemo uses hi-res fonts in all screens except the Card View and low-res fonts in the Card View, you need to install both low-res and hi-res fonts, otherwise the Card View will be left with no font to use and will try to use scaled-down hi-res font which will often look illegible.



i tried it and it seems to make things a little better.
but anyway, i am pretty convinced the pleco flashcards will make any other software superfluous soon.

cheers,



jo.
 

Lonster

秀才
I used to be the local SuperMemo evangelist when I was using the previous version of Pleco's dictionary, but with the betas of PlecoDict, I have completely switched over to just using PlecoDict, and don't plan on looking back. I have found that I have pretty much all the functionality of SuperMemo, and more with the new integrated flashcard system.

One of my favorite features is that I can add any character that I look up in the dictionary by just hitting a button.
 

minnes

秀才
I tend to write it out, not only the charater, but the pinyin and the meaning. after some time, I go back through the learned characters, and read it, saying the english meaning. If I cant read it and/or know what it means, I write them out again, and review later. I find that when I do that, it is usally a lot easier for me to remember it.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
reading reading reading.

Brute force memorization simply does not work for me. I tend to remember work combinations. So, for example, I might know "知道", but have trouble with "知" or "道". Its ok though... its been working quite well for me :)

I try to avoid books with pinyin and characters near one another. For example, quite often text books have the characters and then the pinyin on the line underneath. This does not work for me. I end up reading the pinyin, and ignoring the characters (even though I hate pinyin). I go for books that either are all characters, or have the pinyin and characters on seperate pages.
 

jmcbride

Member
Clavis Sinica flashcards

I've started using the new Palm Chinese flashcards tool from Clavis Sinica. It's got card sets for the 800 most common characters as well as a separate set for radicals. The characters are arranged in stroke-count order, which is a nice and pretty unusual feature. I hope they can be persuaded to add the customized vocab list and compounds flashcards features they've got in their desktop version.
 

raoul

秀才
Supermemo vs Pleco flashcards

I'm using both Supermemo and Pleco's flashcards. Supermemo to my mind is way better than Pleco for two main reasons:

1. After going through the day's vocab, it drills you on anything you got wrong, over and over, until you get it right. To the best of my knowledge Pleco flashcards don't have this feature. (Please someone tell me if I'm wrong!)

2. The formula built into the software that scientifically spaces the repititions to enable optimal memorisation. (Well, thats what they claim anyway - it seems to work).

Despite this, I'm still using Pleco rather than Supermemo for a lot of vocab! Why? Three reasons:

1. Pleco is so easy to create flashcards, whereas it takes way more time in Supermemo - time I simply don't have right now.
2. I've set up a ranking system in Pleco which sort of replicates Supermemo's spaced repitition idea, and I'm happy with that.
3. Its more portable than my laptop!

I'm also manually drilling myself on vocab I miss, using the old pen and paper method, when I'm not sitting in a taxi or in a queue.

Mr Love, if you are reading - put a 'final drill' option into Pleco flashcards, ala Supermemo, and I'll never use Supermemo for vocab memorisation again.
 

gato

状元
1. After going through the day's vocab, it drills you on anything you got wrong, over and over, until you get it right. To the best of my knowledge Pleco flashcards don't have this feature. (Please someone tell me if I'm wrong!)

2. I've set up a ranking system in Pleco which sort of replicates Supermemo's spaced repitition idea, and I'm happy with that.
PlecoDict's rank system provides a way to review cards that you get wrong. But from your no. 2 above, it seems that you already know that.

See here for my flashcard setup, which I find just fine for reviewing the large number of flashcards I have on Pleco:
viewtopic.php?t=614
Flashcards Simplified
 

johnh113

榜眼
Supermemo versus Pleco flashcards

Dear Raoul,

I set my repetition spacing for Rank 1 to be 0 days. If you do that, the missed flashcard will keep coming back (every time you enter flashcards) until you get it right. In my case, I set it to advance to Rank 2 after I get it right once.

For my complete setup you can reference the second posting on:
viewtopic.php?t=617

John
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
raoul - we may not be able to duplicate SuperMemo's "scientific" spacing algorithm, but we are planning on adding something like that "final drill" in 2.0.
 

raoul

秀才
Cheers

Gato, thanks for the link. I looked that over when I was setting things up, and I'm now using a process similar to the one koreth posted in that discussion. Its working well for me.

John, thanks for the idea, it is so obvious that I'd never have thought of it myself! I might try it, but I really don't want to return every incorrect card to Rank 1.

Mike, a true 'final drill' would be wonderful. I can't wait!
 
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