Need some help setting up flashcards

Hello I have a few newbie questions regarding how to set up my flashcards if you guys don't mind.

1) Is there a list of the most common words/phrases in Cantonese that I can import to help me get started? If not, simply an external list that I can go through and manually add would also be very helpful.

2) I'm assuming that cards up for review automatically have the highest priority but how do I give the words "in progress" (that I encountered but failed to mark as correct during a session) second-highest priority in future sessions? Aside from this am I okay to leave everything on default settings? I'm using spaced repetition and am doing tests with every word in my deck which will eventually reach the thousands.

3) How can I change the head font to KaiTi?

4) Right now to backup my flashcards I'm doing import/export - > backup database. I save it to my Google drive and then restore it from there. Is this the correct way to backup my flashcards as well as the progress I've made with them?

Thanks!
 

Shun

状元
Hi Animefootdom,

welcome to the Pleco community!

Hello I have a few newbie questions regarding how to set up my flashcards if you guys don't mind.

1) Is there a list of the most common words/phrases in Cantonese that I can import to help me get started? If not, simply an external list that I can go through and manually add would also be very helpful.

There may be lists online, but I can recommend one book, which based on its quality and size would actually have to sell for about $30 but only costs $4 on Amazon.com Kindle, with extensive audio recordings built in; it's called "Complete Cantonese: Enhanced Edition" by Hugh Baker and Ho Pu-Kei:


It's available in other countries' Kindle stores, as well, and it has 26 lessons with about 50 words each. There is one unfortunate caveat for Android devices: No audio playback. (likely because of codec licensing issues) But the word lists you can easily get to.

2) I'm assuming that cards up for review automatically have the highest priority but how do I give the words "in progress" (that I encountered but failed to mark as correct during a session) second-highest priority in future sessions? Aside from this am I okay to leave everything on default settings? I'm using spaced repetition and am doing tests with every word in my deck which will eventually reach the thousands.

The default settings are a good place to start, and I also recommend checking out one of the threads on Spaced Repetition on these forums and copying the schemas other users suggest there.

3) How can I change the head font to KaiTi?

You should be able to get the font from Fontzone, then select the font in Pleco's settings. See this thread, for example:

According to Mike, some care is needed. Copying the KaiTi font from a Mac or PC is probably the safest option:

4) Right now to backup my flashcards I'm doing import/export - > backup database. I save it to my Google drive and then restore it from there. Is this the correct way to backup my flashcards as well as the progress I've made with them?

Yes, for now.

One more thing how can I delete words from "uncategorized"?

On Android, you tap-hold the card, then choose Delete, or you tap Edit, then tick the box next to it and tap Delete.

You're welcome,

Shun
 
Thanks that was very helpful. About the priority thing though, I've read the flashcards manual and quite a few threads but I still can't find what I'm looking for unfortunately (there are a lot of threads on spaced repetition).

Basically what I'm trying to do is this: say I have a brand new deck of 1000 words. In one session I get through 100 words but was only able to mark 10 of them correctly before I end the session. In my next session, I would like Pleco to show me the 90 words I was unable to remember before showing me any of the 900 brand new words. Do you have any idea how I can achieve this?
 

Shun

状元
You're welcome, glad it helped! I think to do that, you'd need to split the category of 1000 cards into subcategories of 100 cards, and then study the subcategories individually. (tap-hold the category of 1000 cards to split it) Using a Card filter, you could exclude the cards you got right. Or you could simply let the Spaced Repetition algorithm do its thing, without using card filters.

A disadvantage of this approach is that it's now gotten harder to add new cards to the category of 1000 cards because it's already split. So if you're working with lessons, you could also create a separate category for each lesson. That would be easiest to handle, and as an added advantage, you could more easily switch between studying vocabulary and doing exercises for that lesson, which wouldn't really be doable with one large category of cards.

Of course, it's worth trying around before settling on one particular approach.

Edit: I've never used card priorities; I think they aren't a core feature and may even be deprecated relatively soon. (Mike will know more.)

Hope this helps,

Shun
 
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mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Edit: I've never used card priorities; I think they aren't a core feature and may even be deprecated relatively soon. (Mike will know more.)

They're still around in 4.0 if you use the 'legacy' test profile type, which more-or-less precisely duplicates the old system (with all of its quirks), but they're not something we're planning to keep around outside of that; the current "Pleco New" profile type lets you create a sort of "new card queue" with items added in order from that.
 
Hmm it doesn't seem like it should be that hard to do. I have set my incorrect cards to repeat twice during the test so surely its just a matter of preserving the repeat list for future sessions? As far as I know this is how Anki works by default and I've seen Mike mention that Pleco's algorithm is very similar to Anki's
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Hmm it doesn't seem like it should be that hard to do. I have set my incorrect cards to repeat twice during the test so surely its just a matter of preserving the repeat list for future sessions? As far as I know this is how Anki works by default and I've seen Mike mention that Pleco's algorithm is very similar to Anki's

Sorry, should have read the original post in more detail - this is not currently supported within the same session, the best way to do it would be to run a test with a 'card filter' to only review cards that were last incorrect. You could set up two profiles sharing the same score file so that you could switch seamlessly from this test on previously incorrect cards to another test on the remaining cards, just not something we currently support scheduling together.
 
Ah thanks that should work. I noticed that answering a card incorrectly removes it from the deck for my next test. How do I make them stay in the deck until I've answered them correctly?

Also if I choose to continue reviewing when there are no cards due, does that influence the scores/due dates of the cards as if I had reviewed them at the proper time?
 

Shun

状元
Hi Animefootdom,

from the start, I was thinking that you took Anki as an example. Mike will introduce an Anki emulation mode with Pleco 4.0, so I've heard.

I noticed that answering a card incorrectly removes it from the deck for my next test. How do I make them stay in the deck until I've answered them correctly?

For that, the Random card selection mode combined with a card filter is probably better suited than the Spaced Repetition, which introduces time intervals until cards are shown again.

Also if I choose to continue reviewing when there are no cards due, does that influence the scores/due dates of the cards as if I had reviewed them at the proper time?

I expect that with Spaced Repetition mode enabled, you won't be able to continue reviewing at all if no cards are due, but Mike can tell you more about that.

Cheers,

Shun
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
I expect that with Spaced Repetition mode enabled, you won't be able to continue reviewing at all if no cards are due, but Mike can tell you more about that.

There are two different options at the end, a regular 'continue' where scores are still changed (you can configure in Scoring whether reviewing early means the change is adjusted or not) and a "continue w/o dates" where scores are not changed at all.
 
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