easy way for flashcards?

[dawei-x]

hi,

Being in china now i upgraded my pleco, especially to get the better flashcard system. Super helpful and convenient, enables me to learn anywhere. I appreciate it a lot but my golly, the settings are overwhelming, and spread all over multiple screens. sometimes i change a thing and i get a message there are no cards.. and the sheer length of the help screen? wow such a long file.

What to think of: "Set the minimum score to 0 if you only want to restrict the maximum score, or set the maximum score to 0 if you only want to restrict the minimum score"..? Confusing.. I want to study chinese, not an app.

Anyway I have a bunch of cards, partially imported, part i added myself. what i now want, but don't know how to get to, is the following.

Select a category (that is not a problem). Then when i answered a card, say, five times right, it should be presented much less often, but still come up every once in a while. And maybe automatically a new card can be added from the category.

I wish this was simple but I can't figure it out, also it is difficult to check if a card is 'gone' or will come back after a while.

Also (off topic i know) it would be super handy to en/disable the automatic voice after revealing (without going through menu) so people in the shanghai subway don't look at me funny when it is 'on'.
The 'pronunciation' button is now unconveniently far away from the 'yes' & 'no' buttons (portrait)! that used to be much better in the previous version.

 

[mikelove]

Yeah, this is definitely something we need to improve on - honestly it's been a whirlwind the last few years, we developed this flashcard system all the way back on Palm and Windows Mobile in 2008 and we were in such a hurry to finish with those and start working on our iOS app that we never managed to refine the settings properly, then after we released our iOS app initially without a flashcard system people were so upset about its absence that we had to port over the old Palm/WM flashcard system without having time to redesign it, then came OCR, then an Android port, then badly-needed UI overhauls on the iOS and Android apps, and now we find ourselves in 2014 with that same not-entirely-satisfactory flashcard system we released in 2008.

Anyway, we're finally addressing that this year - releasing one more bug fix update on iOS (3.1.4) and then pretty much the rest of 2014 and a good chunk of 2015 will be focused on flashcard improvements (most of which should show up more-or-less concurrently on iOS and Android). But we're certainly not happy it took so long.

Regarding your specific request: this sounds like it should pretty much be the default behavior you get with spaced repetition; choose "Spaced Repetition" from the Profile menu and the rest of the settings will mostly take care of themselves. You can configure the particulars of new card introduction behavior (how many per day or how many in total at one time) in Card Selection.

Good idea about adding a toggle for automatic voices, honestly I think we might want to consider moving pretty much all display- (rather than card-selection-) related settings to somewhere where they can be reconfigured during a test instead of having to exit it and start a new one.

 

[dawei-x]

thanks for your kind reply!

i tried the 'spaced repetition' but i still can't get it right.. so many options but each time you have to stop the session and see what happens. i still get cards that have 100% score.
what i'd like is something straightforward, like a button for each card telling the system "i know it" and then some follow up action -> "hide it in future" or "repeat once a week".. or something like that. that should be all i think.
i'm afraid i now prefer the system i 'developed' myself before upgrading, testing cards manually and put them in some 'archive' when learned, then every once in a while repeat the archive.

can't deny i now regret buying the upgrade... (well the voices are nice, and ocr althoug i will hardly use that). i guess as i upgraded through google market there's no refund possible.

i do hope the flashcard system will improve in the future by becoming more simple..
david

 

[mikelove]

Sorry you feel that way. There are a lot of manual options too that could probably get you to something closer to what you're describing - do you basically just want options to mark correct + wait a week, mark correct + bury it (more or less) permanently, and mark incorrect + repeat the next day?

We're happy to set up a refund if that's what you'd like, though, just contact support.

 

[Daisu Saikoro Nagasawa]

Im in the process of honing a system i like. I right now have 3 settings. A review that lets me mark new cards i know with a high score (850) a review that lets me then review only cards under that score and finally a weekend review where i go through all my midrange to high range cards (over 400).

I still need to tweak but Id recomend staying with pleco. I wish I had purchased the system in September when I first started studying Chinese. Everyone who has bought into the program has found it better than previous methods of study. It is a little confusing at times but it is such a wonderful app (I only recently realized I can screen shot images and import them into the ocr for easy reading. Amazing for programs I am unfamiliar with)

 

[mikelove]

Thanks!

 

[dawei-x]

of course i stay with pleco too, saves me so much time and i can't really take cardboard flashcards in the subway! ;-) i can now use my travel time so efficient. for now i'll stick with my own system of adding cards to my own category (from the dictionary or other categories) , then move them to a 'learned' category when i know them. and once in a while recycle those to make sure i don't forget.
also i found the 'speak' button is withing thumb reach in landscape mode, so that little annoyance is solved too.

david

 

[Daisu Saikoro Nagasawa]

of course i stay with pleco too, saves me so much time and i can't really take cardboard flashcards in the subway! ;-) i can now use my travel time so efficient. for now i'll stick with my own system of adding cards to my own category (from the dictionary or other categories) , then move them to a 'learned' category when i know them. and once in a while recycle those to make sure i don't forget.
also i found the 'speak' button is withing thumb reach in landscape mode, so that little annoyance is solved too.

david

Really. Thats one of the last things which has been bothering me. The placement of speak button as i like to sometimes hear and repeat a word a few times. Landscape mode huh? Thank you. Ill give it a go.

 

[dawei-x]

sure just rotate the screen!