reccomended flashcards to use.

semidevil

秀才
Hello,
I am looking for a good set of flashcards (in traditional chinese) to aid my studying, and was wondering if I can get some info or reccomendations

1. Is the pre-made "hsk2012-2016" a good set to start, or are there better sets out there (by frequency, etc etc). I already speak the language, and my goal is to be a casual reader. i,e be able to read blogs, newspaper, articles, facebook posts etc.

2. There's a couple threads out here from a long time ago. One with 5000 and one titled 3000 by frequency. any reviews on those, and any updates since this was from so long ago?

3. Also, from a learning perspective, is it better to learn individual characters one by one, or is it better to learn phrases...i,e learn the 3 characters that make up 'sorry' vs learning each individual characters.
 

pdwalker

状元
The best flash cards to use for learning are the ones relevant to what you are studying.

While you can learn words you are not actively using, it's harder. Memory and learning works best if you learn in multiple ways with context.

As for learning words or phrases, the answer is, learn both. Your learning will be reinforced by learning your words multiple ways.

For example, three cards in my deck are:
结, a knot or to tie
结束, to end, finish, conclude
结婚, marriage, get married
Plus I will have phrases using those words to reinforce their meaning and usage.

After every class, I add in all the characters, words, and phrases associated with the new words I've learned as a new category and add that category to my regular tests.

Now, since you can already speak the language, you can pick suitable reading material, and use pleco to create the cards related to your reading material (assuming you can bring the text into the reader). This way you can spend the time on words you are actually reading rather than words you won't see that often.

As for the other word lists, I'd still import them all because if you do create a flash card on a word you've read, you'll also see what other categories that word or phrase was also classified under.
 
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