JohnS said:
I thought I was getting something called "handwriting" but I don't know how to turn it on, or what it should look like, or where to find it. I see it in the list of purchased add-ons, but when I tap on it, I just get a paragragh describing the feature. I have never actully seen this functioning. Do I need to download or buy some kind of key?
Go into the main dictionary search screen (the "Dict" tab), tap on the search bar at the top of the screen to open the keyboard, then tap on the "HWR" button just below the keyboard.
This is actually one of our most common new user issues, and one we're trying to do a better job with in our forthcoming UI redesign - along with switching from "HWR" to a friendly paintbrush icon we also plan to put more informative information on that description page in "Add-ons."
JohnS said:
Re. flashcards, I managed to use the pleco browser to get at and download and install a HSK list. But it feels like I am getting words completely at random, some are too easy, and some are too hard.
Roughly what HSK level are you at? The best fix for this would probably be to tap on the "Categories" option and choose just the HSK level that you want to study words from. If some are too easy and some are too hard you probably want level 2 or 3.
You might find that
flashcards tutorial instructive - there are also a couple of other tutorials available in the
instruction manual that will walk you through some of the other features.
JohnS said:
I always tell my ESL students not to waste their time studying a dictionary page by page without regard to whether or not those are words that will ever be of practical use to them. But that's exactly what I feel like I am doing with the HSK so far. I wish I had some kind of topical categories, like "food" or "business", etc., because focusing in that way would help me, I think.
Topical vocabulary lists are a tough thing to come by, actually - very few dictionaries get that fine-grained, they might indicate that a word is of a particular style or fits to a particular academic discipline (chemistry, history, etc) but they'll rarely try to comprehensively tag words as "food" or "business" related. You could sniff around the Flashcard Exchange forum here and see if any of those lists meet your needs better, though; you can also export Pleco-format vocabulary lists from ChinesePod if you have an account there.
JohnS said:
I have been looking through the forum threads, trying to find some practical advice on how to optimize the settings for the flashcard function for various types of practice. If someone knows where to look for this kind of information, please fill me in.
The default settings are actually pretty well optimized, or should be; the main thing you'd want to change is that Categories option (to pick which lists of words to study vocabulary from). You could also try switching to the "Spaced Repetition" Profile (choose it from the "Profile" menu in the main flashcard configuration screen) if you want a slightly more scientifically rigorous flashcard review method - that uses something called "SRS," which basically means that the software tries to optimize the time interval between repetitions of each card so that you'll review it just often enough for it to stay in memory. (e.g. you review it once, then a day later, then a few days after that, then a few more days after that at longer and longer intervals, but if you get it wrong it gets reset back to one day)
JohnS said:
I am getting very depressed because the reason I wanted pleco was because I hoped that my time spent using this technology would be more effective than with the "paper-pencil-dictionary and stack of flashcards" approach.
Really sorry about that - I hope this will help a little bit, but if you have any more questions please feel free to email me at
mikelove@pleco.com.
