Alexis
状元
mikelove said:
There is a frequeny word (not character list) available from http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/morgrams/ (http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/morgrams/chinese-xls.zip.
Not sure how "good" it is though, as I am still a putonghua newb!
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There is a frequeny word (not character list) available from http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/morgrams/ (http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/morgrams/chinese-xls.zip.
Not sure how "good" it is though, as I am still a putonghua newb!
jiacheng - good idea, definitely something to think about when we revamp the flashcard system again; the only problem is by adding another field we end up with so many combinations (any subset of SC/TC/Pinyin/Audio/Definition) that we'd no longer be able to use popup lists to select which fields to test yourself on, which would make the interface a even more complicated than it is now. But perhaps we could get around that with an explicit character set test mode, or with as you say a separate option in the Display panel.
Alexis - also interesting, though it would need a pretty big redesign - right now there's no way for a flashcard to link to a specific part of an entry, so the whole architecture of the system would have to be heavily altered to support that. But that would fit in well with our other plans to improve example sentence support.
That frequency list link seems to be offline, unfortunately - the regular file downloads correctly but doesn't include frequency data and the spreadsheet comes up with a "file not found" error.
Alexis - also interesting, though it would need a pretty big redesign - right now there's no way for a flashcard to link to a specific part of an entry, so the whole architecture of the system would have to be heavily altered to support that. But that would fit in well with our other plans to improve example sentence support.
That frequency list link seems to be offline, unfortunately - the regular file downloads correctly but doesn't include frequency data and the spreadsheet comes up with a "file not found" error.
I found another mention of that MOR list here http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bi ... ldes&P=628 if you want to try and contact the authors.
Alexis
状元
mikelove said:
Sorry about the dead link. It can still be found on the mirror site:
http://www.cnts.ua.ac.be/childes/morgrams/
- Alexis
Thanks. This is interesting, but I don't think the sample size is large enough to be useful for our purposes - 台湾 for example has about 65% more occurrences than 中国, and 中国 only barely edges out 美国 (which occupies the very next position in the list) - a quick Google check suggests that internet-wide, 中国 occurs about 4x as often as 台湾 or 美国 (which are roughly even). Large sample sizes are important because they help to filter out region-specific variations - you don't want to have a high frequency for 吸烟 but virtually no records for 抽烟 - and also lessen the impact of temporary spikes in vocabulary usage; 南斯拉夫 for a portion of the 90s would have been about as heavily-used as 伊拉克 is now, but neither deserves to be ahead of a more consistently common word like 老师 or 公园.
In Flashcards - Free Answer mode - how hard would it be to have full-screen input like in the dictionary?
Linking in with this - is it possible to force or switch to Landscape mode say for the flashcard module? On my device i only switches to landscape mode when the keyboard slides out. There is 3rd party software available claiming to do this, but it wouldn't obviously be as simple as from within Pleco.
Linking in with this - is it possible to force or switch to Landscape mode say for the flashcard module? On my device i only switches to landscape mode when the keyboard slides out. There is 3rd party software available claiming to do this, but it wouldn't obviously be as simple as from within Pleco.
cming - fullscreen handwriting in free-answer would be doable, but probably only as part of the major redesign of the flashcard session interface that we're thinking about, so not for a while. Forcing the screen resolution to change would be doable too, I think - there's an API built into the OS that allows you to do it - but again probably only as part of a big flashcard redesign.
radioman
状元
I wanted to comment on flashcard handling on the iPhone, based on my recent experiences. I have tried just about all of them. I have made the cards myself, building sentences. Definition / Pronunciation / Hanzi. About 1000 sentences, and growing.
Maybe Pleco flashcard systems are already moving toward a similar implementation. But if not, I wanted to provide the comments sooner than later. Perhaps the base theme here is the use of swiping versus a direct press. For many applications I have found the swiping feature to be intuitive but somewhat annoying and unreliable at times. One of my thoughts that perhaps pressing should be an option for the user, at least under certain circumstances (e.g., I would rather flip an eBook page with a press than a swipe).
Studying Sentences - Lately, I have been trying to study the sentences on the eliptical machine or on a treadmill. Studying sentences has some unique aspects, such as you might need to flip back and forth between the deck sides more than with individual words. Also, in the initial review the sentences, I could potentially spend several minutes on a card, flipping back and forth maybe every 20 seconds at times (maybe shorter maybe longer). The overall activity is actually pretty easy.
Flashcard Handling - The iPhone flashcard program I have been using, like many I have tried, requires a swiping action to move from one card side to another, or from one card to the next card. The problem is that swiping an iPhone when exercising like that is that, while doable, but a pain in the neck. I believe the swiping should be part of the card movement. It is intuitive and works. But my thought is that there should be a way to just press the card directly on the screen to flip the card or move from card to card. Pressing directly on the screen rather than swiping makes it less likely that the iPhone will physically move, as well as making action selection more reliable.
Example Flashcard Diagram and Proposed Functionality - The diagram below has been included for reference on the proposed concept. It does not attempt to represent all the necessary functions, but provides a view to the general idea for handling the cards (i.e., large areas that are easy to press). It also does not exclude the user from using this function in a non-exercise situation (they might even prefer it to the swiping motion, with both press and swipe offered, or user selectable).
- Press C to go up (or see side 3) (no swiping motion).
- Press D to go down (side 2)
- Pressing A or B would move to the previous or next card, respectively.
- Press X if the card is wrong
- Press Checkmark if it is correctly answered.
- Pressing A,B,C, or D would just provide a skipping function.
- Another button for "flagging" cards (not shown).
- etc.
This functionality would be a specialized mode (I don't think you can be writing Hanzi while running
) , it just one of many of the sophisticated flashcard modes that would exist.
Alternative Simplified Design - If the above implementation is not possible due to complexity, an alternative that would still provide benefit would be to have just pressing the middle of the screen flip to the next side, and pressing it again flip to the next side, and again, flip back to the initial side. This is due to the need to flip from C to D (reviewing of sides, is required more than moving from card to card. Maybe double pressing the screen would flip to the next card, triple would go back.
iPhone Form Factor Considerations - The first generation iPhone and iPod Touch have flat backs. However, the proposed functionality can apply to the 2nd Generation curved backs , assuming some sort of rubberized (or other) casing is applied to the phone (this would make sense anyway that a iPhone utilized in an exercise setting will require some sort of protective casing.
Maybe Pleco flashcard systems are already moving toward a similar implementation. But if not, I wanted to provide the comments sooner than later. Perhaps the base theme here is the use of swiping versus a direct press. For many applications I have found the swiping feature to be intuitive but somewhat annoying and unreliable at times. One of my thoughts that perhaps pressing should be an option for the user, at least under certain circumstances (e.g., I would rather flip an eBook page with a press than a swipe).
Studying Sentences - Lately, I have been trying to study the sentences on the eliptical machine or on a treadmill. Studying sentences has some unique aspects, such as you might need to flip back and forth between the deck sides more than with individual words. Also, in the initial review the sentences, I could potentially spend several minutes on a card, flipping back and forth maybe every 20 seconds at times (maybe shorter maybe longer). The overall activity is actually pretty easy.
Flashcard Handling - The iPhone flashcard program I have been using, like many I have tried, requires a swiping action to move from one card side to another, or from one card to the next card. The problem is that swiping an iPhone when exercising like that is that, while doable, but a pain in the neck. I believe the swiping should be part of the card movement. It is intuitive and works. But my thought is that there should be a way to just press the card directly on the screen to flip the card or move from card to card. Pressing directly on the screen rather than swiping makes it less likely that the iPhone will physically move, as well as making action selection more reliable.
Example Flashcard Diagram and Proposed Functionality - The diagram below has been included for reference on the proposed concept. It does not attempt to represent all the necessary functions, but provides a view to the general idea for handling the cards (i.e., large areas that are easy to press). It also does not exclude the user from using this function in a non-exercise situation (they might even prefer it to the swiping motion, with both press and swipe offered, or user selectable).
- Press C to go up (or see side 3) (no swiping motion).
- Press D to go down (side 2)
- Pressing A or B would move to the previous or next card, respectively.
- Press X if the card is wrong
- Press Checkmark if it is correctly answered.
- Pressing A,B,C, or D would just provide a skipping function.
- Another button for "flagging" cards (not shown).
- etc.
This functionality would be a specialized mode (I don't think you can be writing Hanzi while running
) , it just one of many of the sophisticated flashcard modes that would exist. Alternative Simplified Design - If the above implementation is not possible due to complexity, an alternative that would still provide benefit would be to have just pressing the middle of the screen flip to the next side, and pressing it again flip to the next side, and again, flip back to the initial side. This is due to the need to flip from C to D (reviewing of sides, is required more than moving from card to card. Maybe double pressing the screen would flip to the next card, triple would go back.
iPhone Form Factor Considerations - The first generation iPhone and iPod Touch have flat backs. However, the proposed functionality can apply to the 2nd Generation curved backs , assuming some sort of rubberized (or other) casing is applied to the phone (this would make sense anyway that a iPhone utilized in an exercise setting will require some sort of protective casing.
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
I'm not a big fan of gestures or of tapping-on-large-regions-of-the-screen as control methods, actually - we use a couple of gestures in the handwriting recognizer, but there's a note right on the screen explaining their use, and there'll be an option to show regular buttons for them instead (at the expense of a slightly smaller drawing area). Gestures / region-taps are not really "discoverable" (something Apple harps on a lot in their documentation / interface guidelines) - people have to actually read the manual (or some sort of built-in help screen) in order to figure out how they work - and they don't offer very good feedback compared to normal buttons.
So my thinking on the flashcard interface is more along the lines of large, colorful, easy-to-read actual buttons for reveal / correct / incorrect / etc, not dissimilar from what we have now except that they'll be a lot bigger (full screen width, I think) in order to make them easier to hit with a finger. (even on a treadmill - I'm more a fan of nice stable exercise bikes myself, since I like to read books while working out, but I'll have to do a test run on a treadmill at some point to make sure the buttons are big enough to be hittable when you're bouncing up and down)
Also, as you say a region-tapping interface would really only work in Self-Scored mode, which has the potential to create a lot of confusion - the flashcard system is complicated enough without having to keep track of which interfaces you can use in which modes. Having big friendly buttons that make it clear exactly what happens when you tap on them is a much easier system to learn / understand than tapping on a particular unmarked corner of the screen.
I still don't like "flipping" either, really - it fits with the "card" metaphor, I guess, but there's no reason why the "front" of the card needs to be hidden once the "back" has been revealed - you're just hiding information people might find useful and necessitating extra button taps to show it again. So the current "Reveal" model will likely survive intact in the iPhone version, meaning you won't have to worry about easy gestures for flipping because you'll only have to do it once per card (with a particularly giant Reveal button).
I'm not a big fan of gestures or of tapping-on-large-regions-of-the-screen as control methods, actually - we use a couple of gestures in the handwriting recognizer, but there's a note right on the screen explaining their use, and there'll be an option to show regular buttons for them instead (at the expense of a slightly smaller drawing area). Gestures / region-taps are not really "discoverable" (something Apple harps on a lot in their documentation / interface guidelines) - people have to actually read the manual (or some sort of built-in help screen) in order to figure out how they work - and they don't offer very good feedback compared to normal buttons.
So my thinking on the flashcard interface is more along the lines of large, colorful, easy-to-read actual buttons for reveal / correct / incorrect / etc, not dissimilar from what we have now except that they'll be a lot bigger (full screen width, I think) in order to make them easier to hit with a finger. (even on a treadmill - I'm more a fan of nice stable exercise bikes myself, since I like to read books while working out, but I'll have to do a test run on a treadmill at some point to make sure the buttons are big enough to be hittable when you're bouncing up and down)
Also, as you say a region-tapping interface would really only work in Self-Scored mode, which has the potential to create a lot of confusion - the flashcard system is complicated enough without having to keep track of which interfaces you can use in which modes. Having big friendly buttons that make it clear exactly what happens when you tap on them is a much easier system to learn / understand than tapping on a particular unmarked corner of the screen.
I still don't like "flipping" either, really - it fits with the "card" metaphor, I guess, but there's no reason why the "front" of the card needs to be hidden once the "back" has been revealed - you're just hiding information people might find useful and necessitating extra button taps to show it again. So the current "Reveal" model will likely survive intact in the iPhone version, meaning you won't have to worry about easy gestures for flipping because you'll only have to do it once per card (with a particularly giant Reveal button).
Dear Mike,
Just a minor point of information. On my Palm 680, I almost exclusively use my finger rather than the stylus. The only time I pull out the stylus is to write a character (and even writing characters I often use my finger). And I usually am walking at a fair pace while using my flashcards and still only use my finger. The current interface design is very usable with just a finger while walking. The only thing I would like to change would be to have configurable button locations so that I could always put the "play audio" button in the bottom left hand corner. Being in a corner makes it easier to press without looking while I am walking. I like to listen to the sound several times while I'm doing the flashcards which requires several button pushes.
I don't have an iPhone, but I don't think you need to make the buttons a lot bigger on the iPhone. I think an interface using buttons approximately the same as we currently have would work just fine.
John
Just a minor point of information. On my Palm 680, I almost exclusively use my finger rather than the stylus. The only time I pull out the stylus is to write a character (and even writing characters I often use my finger). And I usually am walking at a fair pace while using my flashcards and still only use my finger. The current interface design is very usable with just a finger while walking. The only thing I would like to change would be to have configurable button locations so that I could always put the "play audio" button in the bottom left hand corner. Being in a corner makes it easier to press without looking while I am walking. I like to listen to the sound several times while I'm doing the flashcards which requires several button pushes.
I don't have an iPhone, but I don't think you need to make the buttons a lot bigger on the iPhone. I think an interface using buttons approximately the same as we currently have would work just fine.
John
radioman
状元
The larger buttons would be fine and address my concerns. As long as they are easy to reasonably hit, then I would have no complaints. On the exercise front - just a few more thoughts - Treadmills would be good to support. If you can support while running on one of them, then you cannot do much better than that. Use of an elliptical machine is a little more controlled/easier, and they are good because they typically have a place to put the iPhone that is quite convenient, not to far from the person. The recumbent bikes do not have convenient place (too far away), but I guess you could hold the iPhone. I would think that the upright bikes probably have a convenient place to put down the phone if you do not want to hold it.
I also use the Palm, and with the T5 in landscape the buttons are larger. So that was another unexpected benefit of moving to the T5. For audio playback I use the hardware buttons. On the E2 I found the buttons a bit small (even the big ones) and sometimes not very reliable with regard to response (could have been my particular E2). Maybe for now using Pleco on the T5 is better than the iPhone flashcard program on an elliptical machine. I will test it out, and can report back. but sure would like the iPhone version.
I also use the Palm, and with the T5 in landscape the buttons are larger. So that was another unexpected benefit of moving to the T5. For audio playback I use the hardware buttons. On the E2 I found the buttons a bit small (even the big ones) and sometimes not very reliable with regard to response (could have been my particular E2). Maybe for now using Pleco on the T5 is better than the iPhone flashcard program on an elliptical machine. I will test it out, and can report back. but sure would like the iPhone version
.currently for the flashcard session we can define a filter, it means that we can restrict the amount of cards that will be shown by certain criteria.
i would like to have to a switch, where it could tell pleco, that the filter should not restrict the cards (maybe only for repetition spaced ???) but add some more cards, using the filter page.
that way i could configure a session that would show me all the cards i have to review today plus lets say, the cards that i had "incorrect" the last time and have score over 500. right now i have a separate profile that does select only these cards, but i would like to have these cards mixed into my daily set. when i go over the incorrect the problem is, that i know i had them incorrect the last time and therefore give them special attention. i feel that this has a touch of cheating, and above suggestion would resolve this issue :lol:
maybe a more general approach to solve this problem would be to define flashcard sessions, that consist of more than one profile !?!?!
PS: my settings are -50 on 1 incorrect, +50 after 2 times correct, the problems arise, when i start to forget a word, that is already at score 1500+ because after i have it incorrect i would see it again just 2 weeks later... so i made the second profile to "reactivate" the card, or in case i still cant identify it, decrease its score further...
i would like to have to a switch, where it could tell pleco, that the filter should not restrict the cards (maybe only for repetition spaced ???) but add some more cards, using the filter page.
that way i could configure a session that would show me all the cards i have to review today plus lets say, the cards that i had "incorrect" the last time and have score over 500. right now i have a separate profile that does select only these cards, but i would like to have these cards mixed into my daily set. when i go over the incorrect the problem is, that i know i had them incorrect the last time and therefore give them special attention. i feel that this has a touch of cheating, and above suggestion would resolve this issue :lol:
maybe a more general approach to solve this problem would be to define flashcard sessions, that consist of more than one profile !?!?!
PS: my settings are -50 on 1 incorrect, +50 after 2 times correct, the problems arise, when i start to forget a word, that is already at score 1500+ because after i have it incorrect i would see it again just 2 weeks later... so i made the second profile to "reactivate" the card, or in case i still cant identify it, decrease its score further...
Sorry if this has been mentioned before or if the feature is already included-
In the command bar pop-up Pleco window I cannot search for new characters. I want to be able to use the pop-up window while sending text messages (sms) to look for characters that I don't know how to write.
ie if I want to write 出差 but can't remember how to write 差 (happened today) I could pull up the Pleco window, write in 出chai, look at the character, then close the window and continue writing the sms.
As it is now I think the command bar Pleco window can only be used to look up definitions of selected characters/words.
Regards, Henry
In the command bar pop-up Pleco window I cannot search for new characters. I want to be able to use the pop-up window while sending text messages (sms) to look for characters that I don't know how to write.
ie if I want to write 出差 but can't remember how to write 差 (happened today) I could pull up the Pleco window, write in 出chai, look at the character, then close the window and continue writing the sms.
As it is now I think the command bar Pleco window can only be used to look up definitions of selected characters/words.
Regards, Henry
johnh113 - interesting, particularly as the Treo has such a small screen. But on a device without a stylus we really shouldn't be cutting things too tight with button sizes, since if someone can't consistently hit a button with a finger they won't really have an alternative to fall back on. Configurable button locations in flashcards should certainly happen in 2.1 or something around then, though on iPhone we may actually not be providing any button configuration options at all, at least not initially. (we've pared down the toolbar buttons to a point where all of the remaining ones can easily fit on the main screen)
radioman - Treadmills are a good guide, yes - they're about as movement-intensive as any gym activity which still allows you to do something else at the same time. The T5 buttons in landscape are nice and big but the iPhone ones actually may be larger still if we can manage it.
mfcb - interesting thought on that - combining profiles is something we're already considering for 2.1/3.0, though mostly as a way of mixing test modes rather than card selection criteria. If we can find a way to combine the Manage Flashcards / New Session SQL queries into a single big one, that could give us almost unlimited flexibility in terms of choosing cards for sessions, but with the current design something like this would be extremely difficult.
Henry - now that you've installed 2.0.1, if you go into the External panel of the Preferences screen there's an "Include edit box in IA window" option which will bring back that input field from 1.0 so that you can look up different words. You can't use handwriting/radical input from there, but then again you couldn't do that in 1.0 either.
radioman - Treadmills are a good guide, yes - they're about as movement-intensive as any gym activity which still allows you to do something else at the same time. The T5 buttons in landscape are nice and big but the iPhone ones actually may be larger still if we can manage it.
mfcb - interesting thought on that - combining profiles is something we're already considering for 2.1/3.0, though mostly as a way of mixing test modes rather than card selection criteria. If we can find a way to combine the Manage Flashcards / New Session SQL queries into a single big one, that could give us almost unlimited flexibility in terms of choosing cards for sessions, but with the current design something like this would be extremely difficult.
Henry - now that you've installed 2.0.1, if you go into the External panel of the Preferences screen there's an "Include edit box in IA window" option which will bring back that input field from 1.0 so that you can look up different words. You can't use handwriting/radical input from there, but then again you couldn't do that in 1.0 either.
mikelove said:
Excellent! Just what I was looking for. I need to spend some time with the instruction manual, it seems!
An additional comment- it seems that it is necessary to have a character selected to pull up the IA window... it would be nice to be able to just pull up the window from the command bar or hardware button without having a character selected.
(ie If I press the pleco icon in the command bar (T|X) or from a pre-set button without having first selected a character it just says '/Pleco 2' in the command bar or nothing happens at all)
Regards, Henry
Not sure about that yet - it won't be in 2.0.1, and the timeframe for 2.0.2 is kind of up in the air at this point (unless there's a severe bug discovered in 2.0.1 after release, in which 2.0.2 would simply be a release to fix that and wouldn't add any new features at all). Absent any new bugs, the next update on Palm/WM is likely to come out at around the same time as the iPhone version, and would mainly incorporate improvements we've made to our cross-platform engine code for the sake of some new iPhone features.
with handling scores manually we have very few options right now. i would like to have a "decrease: divide points by 2 (or 3) after x incorrect in a row"...
dont think it would make sense to have a "multiply by..." for the Increase, but for the decrease it makes sense, as currently we can only reset the card to a certain (low, sometimes too low) score or decrease it by a small (sometimes too small) amount.
edit: thinking a second time about this, i came to the conclusion it would be better to add to both the decrease and increase "by xx %". then we could additionally to the "by xxx points" configure, that cards change more, when they have higher scores. of course this would replace the above idea of "divide by", as that could be configured as "decrease by 50%"...
if pleco 2.1 gets rule-based scoring, forget this idea :wink:
dont think it would make sense to have a "multiply by..." for the Increase, but for the decrease it makes sense, as currently we can only reset the card to a certain (low, sometimes too low) score or decrease it by a small (sometimes too small) amount.
edit: thinking a second time about this, i came to the conclusion it would be better to add to both the decrease and increase "by xx %". then we could additionally to the "by xxx points" configure, that cards change more, when they have higher scores. of course this would replace the above idea of "divide by", as that could be configured as "decrease by 50%"...
if pleco 2.1 gets rule-based scoring, forget this idea :wink: