I just bought Pleco after hearing good things about it. I am somewhat lost though.

Dragon

秀才
How do I setup a daily review? I wish to know how to setup my flashcard to learn HSK vocabulary list. I want to get the feeling of Anki SRS, where I can review the cards daily and just let it schedule it for me. I switched to pleco because of its instant dictionary features (audio, sample sentences, stroke order and instant character look up by just tapping on it!) I looked up topics regarding this but they are pretty old and I am not quite sure how to do it now properly since there are some UI changes. Any one willing to share their settings?
 

Shun

状元
Hi Dragon,

you could start by checking out this thread:

https://www.plecoforums.com/threads/pleco-coaching-for-flashcard-setup.5398/#post-42583

If you search for „Anki study“ on the forums, you should also find a lot of recent stuff. :)

Welcome and enjoy,

Shun


How do I setup a daily review? I wish to know how to setup my flashcard to learn HSK vocabulary list. I want to get the feeling of Anki SRS, where I can review the cards daily and just let it schedule it for me. I switched to pleco because of its instant dictionary features (audio, sample sentences, stroke order and instant character look up by just tapping on it!) I looked up topics regarding this but they are pretty old and I am not quite sure how to do it now properly since there are some UI changes. Any one willing to share their settings?
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Yep. A more minimal fix would just be to select our "Spaced Repetition" profile in the main New Test screen - do that and it'll pretty much give you that setup without any additional work.
 

Dragon

秀才
Thank you for the response! Upon searching for more guides, I found this on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/3t7fgt
It basically talks about the scoring system, but he doesn't explain the step by step process on how he did the settings on his pleco. I'll quote what he said.

You should always use space repetition, as it's a proven method for increasing retention over time. That said, you can configure Pleco to alter which cards it includes in a given testing session, and how it displays those cards to you.
Card Filters
The most helpful filter is probably Score Filter, which you would typically use it to force the selection of cards that have a low score (i.e., cards that you do not know well). For example, by default the SRS algorithm may select 400 cards for review, but Score Filter would allow you to filter our the cards you know well (i.e., a high score), and focus on the cards you don't know well (i.e., a low score). I use this setting the most when drilling on specific categories of flashcards, like vocabulary lists for tests. You can also try Record Filter and History Filter, but Score Filter is probably all you need.
Configure Score Subjects
This allows you to configure what flashcard information (i.e., headword, pronunciation, definition, audio) is shown, based each card's current score. Here's a configuration I often use:
  • Initial: Characters + Pronunciation + Audio: this is used for cards with the lowest score (i.e., a card I haven't studied or I don't know well) and it shows all the card's information.
  • Step 2 (Score >= 200): Characters + Audio
  • Step 3 (Score >=400): Characters
  • Step 4 (Score >= 800): Definition
  • Step 5 (Score >= 3200): Audio
Essentially, as the score for a card increases, Pleco shows me less and less information. By the time I know the card very well (a score of 3200), only the audio for the card is played, and I have to recall the characters (I enable 字 and write them on the screen) and definition. (Note: I usually enable "Audio" only when testing on very specific and narrow categories of words (usually flashcard categories I create to accompany a test I'm reading). I do not suggest enabling audio only when testing on large numbers of flashcards, as Mandarin has far to many homophones to make this practical).
Pleco has other flashcard settings you can tweak, including those in the Card Selection area, but I suggest you leave them at their default values. It's also worth noting that the flashcard functionality has been rewritten, and we should slowly see the new functionality in upcoming Pleco updates.

I'm curious about this part, how do I setup my pleco this way? After looking around, the results for score file came and after doing some thinkering, I wasn't able to replicate the settings he described here. How do I do this? I was able to find the settings for score files but I'm not quite sure how to configure it like this.

  • Initial: Characters + Pronunciation + Audio: this is used for cards with the lowest score (i.e., a card I haven't studied or I don't know well) and it shows all the card's information.
  • Step 2 (Score >= 200): Characters + Audio
  • Step 3 (Score >=400): Characters
  • Step 4 (Score >= 800): Definition
  • Step 5 (Score >= 3200): Audio
 

Shun

状元
Hi Dragon, interesting scheme, you can try it. If you go into Test settings and select “Score-based” subject selection there, you can Configure score subjects back in the main page to Reddit’s recommendation.
 
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