Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separately

Hi,

I created and imported a flashcard file. I want to do two types of reviews for them. One is for traditional characters the other is for simplified.  Some characters do not have 2 forms, so I'm thinking I need to create two categories - one for traditional characters and one for simplified. For the category with simplified I only want to review only simplified characters. In other words I don't want to review duplicate characters unless they have two forms.  And in simplified I only want to review simplified form and have traditional hidden. I know I can set this in options, but is there a way to do this without having to change settings each time?

For example, my flashcard import is:

你
好
嗎
們
So I want pleco to generate two flashcard categories: traditional and simplified:

In the traditional category the list will be:
你
好
嗎
們

But in the simplified category, the list will automatically filtered to contain only the characters that only has simplified form:

嗎
們

And when I review the simplified category it will appear as:

吗
们




How can I do this with one set of flashcards imported? My flashcard list has 3500 characters so it'd kill me to have to sort them out by hand.

I looked in the place forum but couldn't find a similar question.

Thank you for your help

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

Unfortunately, there's not currently any automated way to filter a flashcard test to only include cards that have separate forms in traditional and simplified - it's an interesting idea, but actually not one we've had a lot of demand for.

You might, however, be able to find a text file on the internet that lists only characters that differ between simplified and traditional. If you can find that, here's what you'd do:

1) Format the file so that it has one character on each line, and this line at the top of the file:
// Dual-form Characters

2) Import that file into Pleco - you'll end up with a new "Dual-form characters" flashcard category.

3) When you want to run a test that's limited only to cards with two forms, configure it like you normally would, then go into the "Card Filters" screen and set up a "Category filter" to "require" that cards be in that "dual-form characters" category. That filter is applied *in addition* to your regular test category selection, so if you wanted to, for example, test on single-characters from chapters 1 through 10 of a particular textbook, you'd configure those in the regular "categories" screen and set up your dual-form characters category in "Card filters."

One caveat: when importing a list of characters without Pinyin (as you would be with this character file), Pleco has no way of knowing which Pinyin to use in the case of single characters with more than one common Pinyin romanization, so it simply picks the most common one. And since flashcards are matched to each other based on the combination of simplified + traditional + Pinyin, it's possible that you might have a flashcard in a textbook vocabulary list that has a character from your "dual-form characters" list with a different pronunciation, in which case it would be excluded by this filter and wouldn't be tested twice.

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

Thank you for the reply mike. I've been searching the internet for this type of list. Not easy to find. Is there a chance you could implement this type of feature for a near future release of pleco? I know not a huge demand for it, but this would be TREMENDOUSLY useful to those who need to study both forms. I've been studying Chinese for over six years and this has one of my biggest obstacles, flashcards to learn both simplified and traditional.

I hope you will add this feature soon. Thanks so much.

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

DarkPanther said:

Thank you for the reply mike. I've been searching the internet for this type of list. Not easy to find. Is there a chance you could implement this type of feature for a near future release of pleco? I know not a huge demand for it, but this would be TREMENDOUSLY useful to those who need to study both forms. I've been studying Chinese for over six years and this has one of my biggest obstacles, flashcards to learn both simplified and traditional.

Click to expand...

OK, here's one I just made from the Unihan database - already added the // bit, so just import this into Pleco and you'll have your list of characters that need to be reviewed in both sets.

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

Wow, very cool! Thank you for your help Mike!

I never knew there are only about 2,600 dual form characters. I had always thought that the number was so much higher given the level of frustration I have every time I try to read simplified. This gives me hope that I can learn them all!

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

Hi mike,

I am slowly working through the dual form characters. I have a question. I set the flashcard to display simplified only under the force character set option, which works fine. However when I click to display the answer and definition, it still only displays simplified only. I'd like the flashcard to show both forms when I reveal the answer. Is there a way to do this? If not, this may be a very nice option to have for future version!

Again, thanks for your help.

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

DarkPanther said:

I am slowly working through the dual form characters. I have a question. I set the flashcard to display simplified only under the force character set option, which works fine. However when I click to display the answer and definition, it still only displays simplified only. I'd like the flashcard to show both forms when I reveal the answer. Is there a way to do this? If not, this may be a very nice option to have for future version!

Click to expand...

That's not possible at the moment unless you create your own custom flashcard texts, unfortunately. However, you can look up the other form pretty easily by tapping on one of the characters in the headword once the full card is displayed (to bring up the standard popup dictionary definition box).

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

Oh nice, I didn't realize that. Thanks mike.

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

Hi Mike,

I'm having a problem with the card filter for dual characters. Following your instructions above, Pleco gives me an error that no cards are found.

For example, if I have two categories:
Dual form
Chapter 1

My goal is to have it test me on chapter 1 characters that have dual form only, i.e. learning simplified Chinese.

Now, if I set category to be tested to only be chapter 1 then set filter to require dual form, it says no cards found.

If I set categories to be tested to be both dual form and chapter 1, and filter to be dual form, it will test all characters in dual form without filtering it out to include chapter 1 characters only.  If I filter chapter one it will include ALL ch. 1 character regardless if the are dual form or not. Now if I add a second filter to also require dual form, it will say no flashcards found again.

Lastly, I tried setting to test one category only: dual form, then filter for chapter 1 only. But it gives me the error no flashcards found.

I tried resetting the scoring for this profile, to no avail.

What am I doing wrong?

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

DarkPanther said:

I'm having a problem with the card filter for dual characters. Following your instructions above, Pleco gives me an error that no cards are found.

For example, if I have two categories:
Dual form
Chapter 1

My goal is to have it test me on chapter 1 characters that have dual form only, i.e. learning simplified Chinese.

Now, if I set category to be tested to only be chapter 1 then set filter to require dual form, it says no cards found.

If I set categories to be tested to be both dual form and chapter 1, and filter to be dual form, it will test all characters in dual form without filtering it out to include chapter 1 characters only.  If I filter chapter one it will include ALL ch. 1 character regardless if the are dual form or not. Now if I add a second filter to also require dual form, it will say no flashcards found again.

Lastly, I tried setting to test one category only: dual form, then filter for chapter 1 only. But it gives me the error no flashcards found.

I tried resetting the scoring for this profile, to no avail.

Click to expand...

Are there any single-character cards in "Chapter 1"? This only works for single characters - sorry if that wasn't clear but my understanding was that that was what you wanted, the ability to study the simplified versus traditional versions of particular Chinese characters.

If there are single-character cards in Chapter 1 and they're still not coming up with the card filter, perhaps you accidentally created some duplicate cards; go into "Search cards" and search for "duplicate," does that bring up a lot of results?

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

Yes, all of the flashcards in chapter 1 are single characters. There are no duplicates. They are the level 1 characters from hsk character list.

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

DarkPanther said:

Yes, all of the flashcards in chapter 1 are single characters. There are no duplicates. They are the level 1 characters from hsk character list.

Click to expand...

Tap on one of them to view its "Card Info" screen, then tap on "Categories" - do you see the "dual form" category listed along with "chapter 1"?

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

You mean in flashcard statistics? 

In the flashcard testing section under basic settings-> categories-> both chapter one and dual form are listed. I've tried having one and both selected before with results described before. 

I guess I should note that chapter one is in a sub-sub category. Under the folder HSK-> SINGLE CHARACTERS -> CHAPTER 1

However I don't think that is the problem because u had the same problem when I moved chapter one to be at the top level.

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

DarkPanther said:

You mean in flashcard statistics? 

In the flashcard testing section under basic settings-> categories-> both chapter one and dual form are listed. I've tried having one and both selected before with results described before. 

I guess I should note that chapter one is in a sub-sub category. Under the folder HSK-> SINGLE CHARACTERS -> CHAPTER 1

However I don't think that is the problem because u had the same problem when I moved chapter one to be at the top level.

Click to expand...

I actually meant in individual cards - go into Organize Cards, go into your "Chapter 1" category and tap on a specific card that you know has a traditional variant, then tap on the "Categories" tab to see which categories it's in - is "dual form" one of them?

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

Oh interesting, none of them are in dual form category. What do I need to do?

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

DarkPanther said:

Oh interesting, none of them are in dual form category. What do I need to do?

Click to expand...

It might be that you accidentally configured Pleco to create new cards when you imported that list instead of simply putting the old cards in new categories. Go into "Search Cards" and search for "Duplicate cards" - do you see lots of results in there?

If so, go into "Dual form" and delete every card in it (Edit button, All, Delete, and "delete from database" rather than "remove from category"), then import the "dual form" list again and this time make sure that "Duplicate cards" under "Problem Handling" in the Import screen is set to "Merge Cats."

Re: Flashcards to review traditional & simplied char separat

Worked perfectly! Thanks Mike.