Hi Mike,
I know you have students in mind when thinking of ways to improve the flashcard module. Here's a suggestion about how to promote it to a different market, those of us who use it in the working world.
Typically, I'm sitting in a meeting with a bunch of people talking business in Chinese. When I hear a word I don't recognize, I write it on the O-E lookup line in pinyin. Often the word is in one of the dictionaries and I then save it as a flashcard. Every few days, I create a new default database, so that I now have many flashcard databases of work related vocabulary. I also do the same with words learned when not working.
The only problem I encounter with this system is when words do not appear in one of my dictionaries, a not uncommon event with technical terms. I'm hoping you can figure out a way for me to be able to store the pinyin word as a card or file that I can later go back and edit into a flashcard once I find out the definition and characters. It would also be nice to be able to add this info to a dictionary database by using a command prompt. In this fashion, one could create a customized professional dictionary.
That brings up another idea. Do you have any plans for members to be able to post flashcard lists and custom dictionaries to a BBS on your site to share with others? Not only would this help new users jump start their learning and promote collaboration amongst your members, it would also be a good sales tool for you.
And here's another plug for a true <back> button, like what one can use in an internet browser. The down carat works only if one is inputting each item to the input line. But in actual use, I find myslef jumping around, whether it be scrolling the dictionary or looking up characters from within a definition. Often times the path from the intial lookup gets too complicated to easily replicate.
Should the day come that you are looking for an even more expanded dicitonary to add to your Pleco portfolio, I'd highly recommend adding the Chinese-English Word Ocean 汉英大辞海 from the 中国中医药出版社. While it does contain medical and botanical words, I find it has any and every business term, abbreviation and common word I've ever come across.
I know you have students in mind when thinking of ways to improve the flashcard module. Here's a suggestion about how to promote it to a different market, those of us who use it in the working world.
Typically, I'm sitting in a meeting with a bunch of people talking business in Chinese. When I hear a word I don't recognize, I write it on the O-E lookup line in pinyin. Often the word is in one of the dictionaries and I then save it as a flashcard. Every few days, I create a new default database, so that I now have many flashcard databases of work related vocabulary. I also do the same with words learned when not working.
The only problem I encounter with this system is when words do not appear in one of my dictionaries, a not uncommon event with technical terms. I'm hoping you can figure out a way for me to be able to store the pinyin word as a card or file that I can later go back and edit into a flashcard once I find out the definition and characters. It would also be nice to be able to add this info to a dictionary database by using a command prompt. In this fashion, one could create a customized professional dictionary.
That brings up another idea. Do you have any plans for members to be able to post flashcard lists and custom dictionaries to a BBS on your site to share with others? Not only would this help new users jump start their learning and promote collaboration amongst your members, it would also be a good sales tool for you.
And here's another plug for a true <back> button, like what one can use in an internet browser. The down carat works only if one is inputting each item to the input line. But in actual use, I find myslef jumping around, whether it be scrolling the dictionary or looking up characters from within a definition. Often times the path from the intial lookup gets too complicated to easily replicate.
Should the day come that you are looking for an even more expanded dicitonary to add to your Pleco portfolio, I'd highly recommend adding the Chinese-English Word Ocean 汉英大辞海 from the 中国中医药出版社. While it does contain medical and botanical words, I find it has any and every business term, abbreviation and common word I've ever come across.