Need help with setting up the flashcards

[StarShire]

Hi!

I've been using Pleco's dictionary quite avidly for a while now and I recently got the flashcards feature. It's really convenient having the dictionary feature along side with the flashcards. Previously, I've been using Brainscape for my flashcards since I really enjoy its repetition feature. However, it's a pain to have to individually type the Chinese characters and their definitions.

I was wondering if Pleco's flashcards can be like Brainscape. I've been searching for the configuration for a while but I couldn't really find any that suits my learning needs. Basically in Brainscape you can rate the cards from 1 to 5, where 1 is the cards that you don't know and 5 is the cards that you know perfectly. The 1s cards reappears after seeing 2-3 other cards while the 5s cards reappear rarely. In other words, the 1s cards get placed somewhere near the front of the deck of flashcards while the 5s get placed near the end.

Is there a way to do this in Pleco? The default settings for the spaced repetitions of Pleco with an imposed limit to how many new cards appear doesn't seem to do this.

Thanks!

 

[mikelove]

At the moment, the soon-to-be-retired 'weighted' card selection system would probably be the closest to this - start with the default settings for Spaced Repetition and pick Weighted as your Card Selection system and that should pretty much get you there.

We're planning to make SRS work for intra-session intervals in a future update, which would give you something closer to what you're looking for, though personally as a matter of pedagogy I'm very much against it - once you've reviewed a card once on a particular day I think the benefits to additional reviews are minimal and you're better off spending your time reviewing older vocabulary.

 

[adam.hamilton]

I actually switched from pleco to Anki a while ago, because I the spaced repetition system just wasn't working for me. I'd forget a card, mark it as wrong, remember it after it came around again, mark it correctly, but then forgot it by the time it came around again. This may have been mainly due to not reviewing everyday, but I've since switched back from Anki (oh my gosh, pleco seems like a dream after coming from anki. I love anki - but the difference between a flashcard system made for memorizing anything and one made for only memorizing Chinese is amazing).

This is my system.

So, for example, for writing, I have two "profiles" set up.

One profile is called "Writing New" and the other is called "Writing Old"

In "Writing New" I have it in a fixed flashcard order - so it shows me the flashcards in the order I've created them. But I have a filter on, so that after I get a card correct in a row 3 times, it will not be included in the test. Also, I have it set so that this phase - my learning phase, doesn't effect my statistics, because it would off-set them a lot.

Then I have my "Writing Old" profile.

I mentioned that in my "Writing New" profile, once a card has been reviewed correctly three times in a row, it's not included in that test anymore. In my "Writing Old" profile, the exact opposite is true: when I use this, ONLY the cards that have been marked correctly three (or more) times IN A ROW are tested. This profile is set up to use spaced-repetition, instead of a fixed order, and the statistics are saved.

I haven't used this set-up for too long, actually, but this is my hope (and so far it's been going great!):

I will learn* the flashcards using my "Chinese New" profile, and then review them with the "Chinese Old" profile. Whenever I get a card wrong that I've learned before, it will go back to my "Chinese New" profile (because the criteria that sorts them is based on correct reviews in a row, not all together) and I'll have to get it right 3 more times, really re-enforcing the card.

Here's where I differ from what Mike was saying:
The problem that I found before was that, even though I had it set so that at the end of the session it would repeat all of the incorrect cards at the end of the session, and keep repeating them until I wrote them correctly, it just wasn't enough for some cards that I would remember it the next time I saw it. The method I'm trying now tries to solve this by re-enforcing it more into your brain by making you write it correctly 3 times, instead of just once. Of course, if you wanted you could set it so that you have to write it more times or less times - it all depends on what you feel is good. If you thought you only wanted to write a card that you had forgotten 2 times to reinforce it, you could make a third profile called "Re-enforcing" or something like that.

Another option you could look into, if you even run into this problem (you might not), is adjusting the review intervals - but I've never done that myself...

 

[mikelove]

Interesting system - more intelligent / configurable repeating of incorrect cards is definitely a focus for this year's various flashcard revamping efforts.