Practical Audio-Visual Chinese Dictionary and Flashcards

fritefal

Member
Can anybody verify if it works on Android? I just downloaded Pleco onto my HTC Incredible, and I have to admit I'm a bit lost. I read the instructions, but when I went to move the .pqb file into the "Pleco folder," I couldn't locate it! Anybody know what the problem is? Thanks!
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
fritefal said:
Can anybody verify if it works on Android? I just downloaded Pleco onto my HTC Incredible, and I have to admit I'm a bit lost. I read the instructions, but when I went to move the .pqb file into the "Pleco folder," I couldn't locate it! Anybody know what the problem is? Thanks!

On Android, you'd want to copy the file anywhere on your SD card, then go into Settings / Manage Dictionaries, tap "Add User," tap "Load Existing," and select that file.
 

alex_hk90

状元
fritefal said:
Can anybody verify if it works on Android? I just downloaded Pleco onto my HTC Incredible, and I have to admit I'm a bit lost. I read the instructions, but when I went to move the .pqb file into the "Pleco folder," I couldn't locate it! Anybody know what the problem is? Thanks!
I can verify that it works on Android. :)
 
It's really amazing to revisit this thread after so many years and see that these flashcards have helped quite a few people. Thank you for all the kind words of support. It seems I even managed to generate some sales, and that's great news too: Pleco is an excellent product, and I gladly recommend it to anyone potentially interested. In fact the reason I'm on the forums now is because I've just repurchased the whole pro bundle on iOS, in addition to the Android package I've been using hitherto, which was transferred from iOS, which was transferred from Windows Mobile. But I digress...

I realize the answers might only be of historical interest now, but would still like to provide them for completeness:

I just was wondering if it is possible to limit the flashcards to each chapter.
In fact it was like this in the earlier versions of the flashcard file but I merged the first two books into one category each as I progressed into book 3. There was a reason I did it, but I don't remember exactly. I think too many categories were giving Windows Mobile 6.x some hiccup. That OS was not legendary for its stability, to put it mildly.

The modified version contributed by Mikelove provides this functionality. I've updated the first post in the thread to point to it as well.

I also removed the superfluous bracketed headword characters (since the lists only supply traditional versions and they're just duplicates).
Again! There was a reason I did this but I can't remember it now exactly. :) I think it was something related to a bug where the flashcards were either unwittingly duplicated or not reported as duplicate when the simplified headword was empty. Or maybe it was that if there was only one headword, sometimes it'd be imported as simplified, and sometimes as traditional.

The ultimate plan was to have the actual simplified variants alongside the traditional ones eventually but then I realized I don't really need to do this to learn simplified. :)

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone know an international (specifically UK) distributor for these books (in either physical or electronic form)?
Books.com.tw (博客來) and Kingstone.com.tw (金石堂) both seem to ship internationally (the links are to their fee schedules). I haven't used them personally but I know they are big players in the market. Think Taiwan's Amazon and B&N.

Mind you, these books are not really that wonderful; it's just that studying at Shida, you're forced to go through them before you can move on to anything else. Unless something changed with a new edition, the presentation is pedestrian, the English is mangled to the point of often being incomprehensible (or wrong), and the choice of vocabulary to study is abysmal: for example, you'll not learn the character "巷," which is a necessary component of nearly any address in Taiwan, but you'll get to know how to say "cocaine" or "MDMA" in Chinese. There is also too much focus on obscure grammar jargon of interest to no-one, and the language taught is not the kind of Mandarin used in Taiwan with all the rhotacism, hardly ever used vocabulary ("扔出去") and grammar (doubling the "了" in one sentence).

There're some better books, even from Shida. For colloquial, spoken Chinese, there's one called Mini Radio Plays (迷你廣播劇), and for the more formal, written language (but not 文言文), there are three books called something like the "Practical Chinese Reader". I can't seem to find the link now, but I think they're also published by 正中書局, so with some luck you'll find them in this category.

With all that in mind, while the PAVC books are neither audio-visual nor particularly practical, doing these flashcards will still help your Chinese a lot - especially if you're in Taiwan, and want to do the TOP, TOCFL, or whatever their test is called today. ;)
 
I've just updated the dictionary and flashcards to include simplified characters as well. Per-chapter categories for the first two books are also back, and I've rewritten the description in the first post so that it reflects all that.

Edit: Posted an updated version again, with a few fixes. Added a more convenient way to install the flashcards with a PQB file, and rewrote the instructions accordingly. Also added an extra HSK flashcard list for even more vocabulary. Please download from the first post.
 
Last edited:

DaveDz

Member
I've just updated the dictionary and flashcards to include simplified characters as well. Per-chapter categories for the first two books are also back, and I've rewritten the description in the first post so that it reflects all that.

Edit: Posted an updated version again, with a few fixes. Added a more convenient way to install the flashcards with a PQB file, and rewrote the instructions accordingly. Also added an extra HSK flashcard list for even more vocabulary. Please download from the first post.

Hey Im new to Pleco I installed the APP yesterday on my Iphone and Purchased " the Basic Bundle"
I exactly needed what you have posted appreciate it soo much but I cant make it work..

If I open it through the Reader>Open document > choose Av chinese flashcard (2015 -05)
its shows this :
ylMjjz9.png


if its as your guide and I do settings > manage dictionaries > New user > import Enteries
it shows this.: and all is empty
tqGw7ZF.png

2IoMGjy.png


please help me out : / I purcashed this app only for this.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Sorry for the confusion. You need to import these through the "Import Cards" command - sidebar menu, Import/Export, Import Cards. The user dictionary option would create a new user dictionary with those words, it wouldn't create any flashcards.

It looks like there must be a bug in the user dictionary importer that's causing it to create flashcard categories when it encounters a flashcard category header in a user dictionary file - we'll fix that in a future release. Sorry for the confusion.
 
@DaveDz I don't know what exactly went wrong but if you do it like this it should all work out fine:
  1. From the first post in this thread, download the file AV Chinese Flashcards (2015-05).zip, and extract the file Pleco Flashcard Database.pqb from inside the archive to your computer.
  2. Similarly, download the file AV Chinese Dictionary (2015-05).zip, and extract the file AV Chinese.pqb from inside.
    (The download is split in two files due to forum attachment size limit, sorry for the inconvenience.)
  3. Open Pleco and go to ☰ → File ManagerUpload / Download Files.
  4. On the computer, open your browser and go to the address shown by Pleco, which will be something like http://10.0.0.3:50505/ and use the browser interface to upload the two .pqb files you just extracted.
    (If the above steps don't work for some reason, you can transfer the files with iTunes.)
  5. Back in Pleco, close all the dialogs, tap ☰ → SettingsManage DictionariesAdd UserLoad Existing and point to the AV Chinese.pqb file that you just uploaded.
  6. Now choose ☰ → Import / Export (under Flashcards) → Restore Database and point to the Pleco Flashcard Database.pqb file.
  7. You can delete the two .pqb files in ☰ → File Manager when done.
(Note — generally for other people reading this post later: this is the fastest way to install but will completely replace your previous flashcard database, so don't do it if you already have any scores, flashcards or test profiles you want to keep. In that case, you'll want to import the flashcards from .txt files, which is more cumbersome. Check the first post for instructions.)
 

DaveDz

Member
thank u very much Captain Planet it was abit complicated but now much more understood I succeed adding it properly
now I can see all the words .
I have last question if possible when I view the Flash cards like this:
Organize cards > av chinese >book 1 > lesson 1 > enter to one of the words and see this :
mr4Soro.png


For starting to learn each word do I need to do a long press > choose dictonary ?
then it shows proerly and I can hear audio , full transaltion and explantion of the word.

Im just trying to figure how is the best method to start learning these chinese words
thanks
 
For starting to learn each word do I need to do a long press > choose dictonary ?
then it shows proerly and I can hear audio , full transaltion and explantion of the word.
There are many ways to set it all up and you should choose one one that works best for your needs, as it all depends on what you're trying to do exactly.

I suggest going through the flashcards manual page if anything just to get an idea what the possibilities are. It might take some time to get through all the options but this initial investment will pay off in the long-run.

But just to get you started quickly:
  1. Set up a separate category for all the flashcards you want to be tested on:
    ☰ → Organize FlashcardsNew Category → Type: TestDone
    (Note that each card can be assigned multiple categories.)
  2. Add some flashcards to this new category, while still keeping them in the original category as well:
    ☰ → Organize FlashcardsAV ChineseBook 1Lesson 1EditAllCopy → Choose: Test
  3. Choose to be tested only on the cards within this newly-created category:
    ☰ → New TestCard categories → Choose: Test → Done
  4. Start the test (possibly also adjusting some other settings beforehand):
    ☰ → New TestBegin Test Session
This is the gist of how I use it, more or less.
 
Hi, this is my first time using Pleco. Just wondering if you have to purchase the Pleco Flashcard System add on in order to use these flashcards?
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Yes - only exception would be if a) you're using Android and b) you don't care about the user dictionary aspect of them (only want to test them) and c) you're OK with very rudimentary testing (just shuffling a deck and revealing them, no SRS or multi-choice or anything like that) in which case the free basic flashcard system built into our Android app might suffice.
 
Ok, thanks for your reply. And thanks very much for adding all these books – it's a great resource. I have an iPhone so will purchase the flashcard system.
 
Hello. My name is Jamar Whaley and I've started studying (under a Taiwan Ministry of Education HuaYu Scholarship).

This school uses PAVC for its courses and I want to just say from myself, my classmates (all of whom I'm trying to convert to Pleco (paid version)) THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I replaced both the flashcard sets with what you've given us and added the user dictionary and am so glad and appreciative of what you've done. It's no little thing having this series and I will share it with students that come into the program while I'm here over the next year.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!!
 
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