Another user by the name of BIGKEV posted a question a few weeks ago about how to handle the problem of making flash cards that carry han zi , english, and pin yin.  I figured this one out for myself a while back and wanted to share what I came up with via DIY video.  This is  a .mov file and may need Quicktime to play. Poddies... enjoy:

Is there a way to get the flashcards application to display the traditional character set instead of simplified ??

Not sure if it's me but I'm sure a week ago the flashcards talked. By that I mean when you click 'Show' and the pinyin/english appeared in between there was a speaker symbol you could click on to hear the character or word spoken.

For me today the speaker symbol is gone and the flashcards have stopped talking. Is this just my imagination or does anyone else find the same?

The talking flashcards were a great feature - how can I get them to talk to me again?

Would be grateful for any replies!

-Elliot

PS - Thanks to the Chinesepod team for so many great features on the website!

I have written a flashcard program for myself because the Chinesepod one wasn't fitting my needs.  I'm at a point where I can share it if anybody would like it.  However, I don't have a site to put it up to, so if anybody has a place I could put it for download, let me know.

Here's what you get:

1.  Intelligent word choice:  As you get words right, you'll see them less and less.  If you're getting them wrong, you'll see them more often.  Once you have "learned" a word, you will see it only extremely rarely.

2. Testing based on Chinese, English, or Pinyin.  Both Simplified and Traditional are supported.

3. Vocab Editor.  Although it is a bit rough at this point, you can manually edit, add, or subtract vocabulary.

4. Smart import.  To populate your vocab in the program, export your vocab list to XML.  Then import that file from the File menu of the program.  The import will eliminate any duplicate entries, where both chinese and english are the same.  This way you can import new words on top of what you already have and it won't duplicate your library. 

Please note:  Chinesepod's export feature occasionally exports faulty words.  My software will let you know the line of the error, and you have to go in and either delete the word or fix the problem before you can successfully import.  Chinesepod has let me know this problem is on their list to fix.

Here's what it doesn't do:

1. Sound.  I haven't figured out how to get that to work yet.

2. Go Back.  Because of the learning nature of the program, it is not practical to offer the back or previous feature

Since so many of us uses flashcard I start this thread to discuss different usage of those lovely cards. We do have flashcards available in Cpod but there is also many external sources. I will add my own usage to this thread later today but right now i am on our corporate network and do not have access to some links etc that I need. Please feel free to add posts about how you uses them.

Hello everyone,

  I had a relatively good learning week! My technology problems seem to be solved right now, and I am back into a good grove. I have flashcards made for about 520 words and word combinations. Out of this, I have proficiency on about 339. I have acquisition on an additional 90 terms. The verbal part is going slower than the written part, but I am doing better on both areas. The past week, I had done the taxi conversation series and a couple of other lessons. I like the idea of an audio phrasebook, and I also like when the lessons are grouped together like that.

  As I have stated in an earlier post, I have found a way to print flashcards. This has the benefits of being faster than writing, and being more accurate. For example, it took between 50 minutes and an hour and 15 minutes to do 15 flashcards using the handwriting method. Last night, I printed off 100 flashcards in about 3 and a half hours. What I do is I use ms paint, do print screen and set up a paper with 5 terms as if I were going to print them on a sheet of 8.5 X 11 paper. What I actually do is use packing tape and tape my flashcards to the paper, and feed the paper through the printer. It uses very little ink, and it never jams up. I use the same flashcards that I was using for the handwriting method, so there is no conflict there.

  My greatest gains are in reading. I am at a point where I can read much of the newbie expansions. I would say that half the time (50%), I get the essential meaning of the sentence right. another 25%, I might understand all the terms, but my lack of knowledge of how the terms are actually used prevents me from understanding correctly what is being said. For the remaining 25%, I generally will not understand a word or two in the sentence, or flat out get the sentence wrong. Elementary level expansions are more difficult for me. I would say that 15% of the time, I am able to get the essential meaning of the sentence right. another 15% or so, I might understand all the terms, but my lack of knowledge of how the terms are actually used prevents me from understanding correctly what is being said. For the remaining 70%, I generally will not understand a word or two in the sentence, or flat out get the sentence wrong.

  Much of my study time is spent going through the lessons trying to find terms and words that I don't know. I don't bother going through the newbie lessons doing this anymore because I might only find one or two unknown words. I currently do well doing elementary lessons, but I figure it is just a matter of time before I feel like I am panning for gold in my bathtub. I notice that in the community page, people build vocabulary lists. I also notice that I can set to share my vocabulary lists. Is there a way to find lists that others are sharing so that I can get words from them? I am guessing that there is such a way, but I havent figured it out yet.

  Guess that is it for right now, below (hopefully) you will find two photos that will show my progress that I have had since joining Chinapod. In the first photo, I have a small stack. It was taken about a week or so after I started the chinese lessons. The Bottom photo was taken on the 3rd of this month. I guess I will be doing these updates on Thursday/Friday instead of Sunday as I am scheduled to work on the weekends for the time being.

Hello everyone,

Like I stated last week, the study efforts have been scaled back. This is mostly because of the fact I have less time on account of the fact that my classes have resumed in college. The progress of this week was either average, or a little bit under average. Here are the specifics;

Currently, I have flashcards for 579 terms (more or less). I am studying about 80 or so of the 579, so that means that I have proficiency of about 500 terms. I am again adding 60 terms this week, and I am not converting any handwritten terms this week.

Each week, I plan on setting aside one day to do review of flashcards that I already know. If I identify words that I have trouble with, I put them in with the stack that I am currently learning. This week, I took a trip to Washington DC to watch the Presidential Inauguration, and that disrupted my rhythm a little bit. I missed Tuesday's flashcard session, and on Wednesday I made a decision to skip my weekly review session and do flashcards instead so that I would remain at the pace that I want to maintain.

For the speaking and listening, it was a mixed week. It started out strong, and ended up non-existent. I didnt do any podcasts at all since Saturday because of frustration. I was working at a podcast, and I seemed unable to learn any of the words. I grew frustrated and started listening to music instead. Tonight, I plan on starting the podcasts again. I am just dreading doing so.

Well, that is all I want to say right now.

Hello everyone,

The progress this week started off a bit bumpy, but the last few days have been average. I would say that the progress of this week, like last week, was either average or a little bit under average. Here are the specifics;

Currently, I have flashcards for 640 terms (more or less) and I have already selected 60 terms for next week. I have started the term selection for the following week, adding a handful of terms that are repeaters from words that I learned previously. This is a delicate way for me to admit that I had forgotton some of the terms that I had learned. My stack has gotton so large that I review only half the stack each Wednesday instead of the entire stack. This is after carefully shuffling the entire stack to attempt to get random terms, which can be quite the task.

Using the flashcards, I had a good week besides Friday. I am averaging 10 words or so getting added to the stack every day, which is good because I am adding 10 words to the pile of words that I am learning each day. This means that I am keeping pace. I find that when I add words, I learn them at roughly three times going through them, which is good. This means that I am normally done with the flashcards for the night within an hour. 

Speaking and listening started out a bit weak, but the last three or four days have been average to above average. On Wednesday, I did two podcasts instead of my normal one podcast. As I have pointed out in the past, the speaking and listening is more difficult for me than reading. I add 10 words to the flashcards everyday (except wednesday which is my review day), and the podcasts have about only 5 - 10 words each. Being that I do only one podcast per day, it is necessary to conclude that the speaking will continue to fall further behind the reading.

While speaking and listening are difficult, I have found one strategy that seems to help some. When listening to the audio review, and encountering a new term, I try to think of an english word, or sound that is similar to the term. Once I do that, I memorize the sounds and words instead of trying to memorize the word. On the next pass through, I focus on the sounds and words for the pronounciation. This ensures that I get the term correct. Soon, I don't have to remember the sounds and words anymore, and I acquire the new term in Chinese. Subsequently, I repeat the word to get as close to the model as possible.

I hope this is helpful, also please feel free to leave comments if you have any strategies for learning how to speak the language.

Hello everyone,

The progress this week was average. Here are the specifics;

Currently, I have flashcards for 700 terms (more or less) and I have already selected 50 terms for next week. I have selected my terms for the next several weeks.

Using the flashcards, I had a good week besides today, but today was not a disaster, it just wasn't quite as good as I normally do. 

I have decided to alter my routine as follow; Instead of doing new terms 6 days per week, I am doing them 5 days. I am going to set Monday and Thursday aside for reviewing the terms in the stack of words that I know. I want to try this change to see if it helps me retain words that I have learned.

Speaking and listening was on par for what I normally do. I completed 5 new podcasts, plus I have done lots of reviewing of lessons I have done in the past.

Please feel free to leave comments if you have any strategies for learning how to speak the language.

Hi everybody,

I want to make and share some new flashcards like I did here that include the Chinese names for worldwide famous people and icons, such as 'The Beatles' or 'Marilyn Monroe' and so on.  (I get tired of resorting to the English name.)  I want to make two sets of 50.  Do any of you have any ideas on who should be included?  Thanks in advance.

Is there any way to toggle flashcards between traditional and simplified?  All my lesson dialogues toggle back and forth no problem and, of course, PDF's have had a fix from the beginning.  However, the flashcards only seem to display simplified characters, regardless of lesson settings.

Any help would be appreciated.

Do you put entire sentences on your flashcards? I've just started, and it's great stuff. Here's my new guideline:

When learning characters, study words. When learning words, study sentences.

I never believed in learning the characters in isolation. Seemed like a waste. Why not learn the words, instead? You'll have to learn the characters to get the words, anyway. Now I'm feeling the same way about words. However, having entire sentences on flashcards won't work very well if you don't know the characters. That's too much unknown stuff to put on a flashcard.

So right now, when I encounter a word where I know the characters, but didn't know the word, I make a search for it on nciku, find a good example sentence and add the whole thing into the vocabulary tool in CPod. This usually gives me a grammar construction and sometimes several new words (and if not, overlearning on old words) for free. Also, getting to know the word in a context really helps me to know how to use it (to avoid using it just like its English counterpart is used in English). However, I always make sure I know all the characters in the sentence. I never add a sentence with unknown characters.

Just thought I'd share. Do you work with memorizing sentences? Why or why not?

I thought I would share a tool that I have found for the iPhone. It is Flashcards Deluxe, which is just a very practical flashcard app for the iPhone, and which happened to be developed by a guy for his Chinese study. It meshes really well with ChinesePod as you can export your vocabulary to Anki 0.9, and then copy and paste from the exported text file to the upload page for Flashcards Deluxe. It is a lot more iPhone friendly than Anki and much more customizable.