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Vocabulary Software - Wakela - 2006-06-14

I've been using a freeware flashcard program called JFC. It's pretty good...and free...but it's a little awkward to manage cards. What do you guys use to study vocabulary?

Vocabulary Software - ruuku35 - 2006-06-14

Wakela,

I'm on a mac and I use "iflash" which costs $15. I find the cards really easy to handle on it. http://www.loopware.com/iflash/ .......but it's only for mac.

Vocabulary Software - Ricardo - 2006-06-14

Hi Wakela!

Wakela Wrote:I've been using a freeware flashcard program called JFC. It's pretty good...and free...
Nice! Won't you share the URL with us? Wink

Wakela Wrote:but it's a little awkward to manage cards. What do you guys use to study vocabulary?
Hmm... a long time ago I made my own flashcard software for Windows, using Delphi, to help me remember a few words from my Japanese course (Kumon). I never used it again since I bought a Palm IIIxe, though. ;-)

On the Palm you can use PAdict (freeware) and KingKanji (shareware) specifically for Japanese, or several other flashcards softwares for any language. A good starting point is the PalmGear site.

BTW, I just made a few scripts to bring the RTK site to my Palm. Big Grin It's so nice to carry the site with me to study-on-the-go... Wink

[]s!

Vocabulary Software - Wakela - 2006-06-15

Ricardo Wrote:Wakela wrote:

I've been using a freeware flashcard program called JFC. It's pretty good...and free...

Nice! Won't you share the URL with us? wink
Why, I would be delighted to, Ricardo.
This is the JFC page:http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/jfc.html
And this is the page for JWPCE (mentioned on another thread), which you will need to make card files.
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/jwpce.html

This program definitly gets the job done, but it seems to forget your progress when you add new cards to the same file. It works very well if you are making one card file per lesson. But I find myself wanting to add a word or two here and there, like you can with this site. It's a pain to check to see if the word is in a previous file.

Also, a few of my card files have become corrupted so that I cannot edit or read them; I can still use the cards though...

Overall, it's good though. I've been unsing it for over a year now.

Vocabulary Software - ruuku35 - 2006-06-15

Wakela,

Radical_tyro gave me this link http://pauker.sf.net/

Thought you might like to check it out too. Smile

Vocabulary Software - Immacolata - 2006-06-15

I use SuperMemo 2004. I think a PocketPC version exists. It has somewhat dodgy unicode support, partially but good enough for japanese. The reviewing algorithm used is superior to a vanilla Leitner method, like used on this site.

Adding new vocabulary is a bliss once you figured out the formatting of the files. I enter my vocab in an excel spread sheet and export it to txt files for importing.

The UI relies on a lot of short cuts and looks atrocious. The efficiency in learning, however, is unsurpassed. When you start juggling large collections of stuff to remember, such as 2042 heisig cards an odd thousand number of japanese phrases, any regular leitner method starts to be cumbersome.

In supermemo you grade each card when you review them. High scores means you push their next review far back. Lower score means you push it a little less, say, 20 days instead of 30. A failed score is also in 3 grades, and each score affects the cards difficulty level. This means that kanjis like 山 will not default for review every 2nd month even if I will never forget again, unlike 慈, which I keep forgetting time and time again. I think my next review of 山 is somewhere in late august, and I reviewed it in march last time. This is the prime reason I stopped using this site for reviewing purposes.

Vocabulary Software - guppy - 2006-06-18

ruuku35 Wrote:Wakela,

I'm on a mac and I use "iflash" which costs $15. I find the cards really easy to handle on it. http://www.loopware.com/iflash/ .......but it's only for mac.
I used iflash for a while but quit after the success I had had with this site's strict Leitner approach. I really liked the program but I felt that there wasn't enough staggered learning. Not to mention that I am always on the go, so I went back to paper flashcards. I would really like to know if you have any suggestions on staggering your
vocabulary and/or studying on the go.
Thanks!

Vocabulary Software - renzo - 2006-06-18

guppy Wrote:I really liked the program but I felt that there wasn't enough staggered learning.
I just downloaded and tried iFlash and I think it's amazing. Did you try the "Interval" learning feature? Isn't that basically Leitner?
[Image: iflash9rc.th.png]

Vocabulary Software - guppy - 2006-06-19

Well, I think in a strictly Leitner approach, the missed card would go back to 0 instead of subtracting 3. But, like you said it is basically Leitner... I never used it, so I'm going to give it a shot. Thanks for the advice and screenshot!

Vocabulary Software - darg_sama - 2006-06-19

I'm using Ocha no Kanji, of which I've finished making an JLPT 1Q version. I haven't finished putting all of RTK2 in there, but an RTK version is in the works - if enough people seem interested then I'll get back on it. It's also Leitner based if you're wondering.Big Grin

Vocabulary Software - daniel - 2006-06-20

I've been using Mnemenosyne (http://mnemosyne-proj.sourceforge.net/). It's a free flash card program based on SuperMemo. It uses the same kind of grading system, but it has a less intricate algorithm for calculating the optimal repetition interval than the current version of SuperMemo. It's still under development, but works well enough now.

Entering all the flash cards is a bit of a bother though, but I guess it's the same as with any other flash card program.

Vocabulary Software - reslez - 2006-06-20

A website would work better for me than a program I have to install, with settings I have to update in multiple places. Work, home, laptop, media center pc.

Does anyone know of a website that lets you make flashcards and review them using the Leitner method, that can handle Japanese characters?

This site is incredibly useful to me because I can access it anywhere. The ideal would be [this site] + [ability to make your own Japanese vocab review cards].

Vocabulary Software - reslez - 2006-06-20

So far the best site I've found is http://www.flashcardexchange.com. It looks like a ton of people are using it to study Japanese. However, if you want to use Leitner you have to pay $20, and the ads are in an annoying spot.

Vocabulary Software - anelson87 - 2006-06-20

I like the program jMemorize [http://riad.de/jmemorize/]
It works on any platform that supports Java. Have fun!

Vocabulary Software - khooks - 2006-06-21

A website would work best for me too. I'd like one that used something similar to Leitner and was capable of having more than 2 sides per "card." The text I'm using is the Genki series from Japan Time and it would be nice to drill the vocab prior to each chapter.

In addition to the applications that have been listed so far, I found one called Stackz that seems to be pretty good. It does have multi-sided cards and there's a nice online section for sharing flashcard sets. However, it's not web-based and it's not free.

Vocabulary Software - aizeya - 2006-06-27

Well, I know a web site would work best for me as well, but I've been unable to find one that's as quality as RevTK. Of course, being specialized makes it a bit easier...there's a few issues/features that don't have to be dealt with.

So, something I've been thinking over the past couple of days is what I'm actually looking for in a site. Let's say you're designing your own flash card site. What features would you want? How would you design it?

The ideas I've had so far:
* Multi-sided, obviously. Perhaps with names for each side (like 'Kanji', 'Reading', 'Meaning'), so you could add custom sides, like, say 'Heisig Meaning'.
* Tags, instead of folders. As in, being able to have one card in multiple groups. This way you could do stuff like...have it in a noun group, a heisig group, a group for lesson 22, and a group for edible nouns.
* A leitner-like review system. Preferably customizable, though if it follows the RevTK setup I wouldn't mind.
* Being able to share groups with other users. Possibly with a comment system.
* Being able to source cards from other sites. That way you could type in a word, select the source, and have it auto-add sides for reading and meaning. Hopefully this would be customizable, at least on request, since I'd like to be able to use the same site for studying other languages.
* Some sort of quick-entry method. Possibly using AJAX, or maybe just a huge textbox where commas separate sides and semicolons separate cards.
* Free, and hopefully open-source.


Whachu all think? Any other ideas?

Vocabulary Software - nmkohi - 2006-06-28

aizeya Wrote:Well, I know a web site would work best for me as well
...
The ideas I've had so far:
...
Whachu all think? Any other ideas?
I agree with everything you've said. I wonder if ファブリス has some spare code
lying around we could kick start the project with Wink

Vocabulary Software - Wakela - 2006-07-26

Not sure if you guys were aware of this, but you can now download SuperMemo 98 as freeware, and 2002 as a trial version. Last time I had checked there was no free or trial versions.
http://www.supermemo.com/english/down.htm

I've been messing around with 2002 this morning. Everyone who said that the interface is difficult to use is guilty of gross understatement. There is nothing remotely intuitive about this software. The website and documentation are also overly complex. However, I still get the feeling that once you figure it out this software can be very helpful, so I'm going to work at it a bit more.

It's almost funny how mnemosyne which I hear is pretty mush the same thing has the opposite issue. It seems overly simple with no documenation that I could find.
http://mnemosyne-proj.sourceforge.net/index.html

Vocabulary Software - Wakela - 2006-07-26

SuperMemo questions:
Using SuperMemo 2002 Demo I get garbage when I import a Q & A text file with kanji in it. The file is saved with UTF-8 encoding. I didn't see an option in SM to specify that I was importing a UTF-8 file.

When adding Q & A entries manually the kanji displays fine when I'm "learning", but it's garabe when I use one of the other functions like "contents."

Better UTF support is one of the features of 2004. Do users of 2004 have these same problems? Is there something I'm doing wrong in 2002?

Also, one of my favorite things about this site is watching those green bars get bigger and bigger and the red and orange ones get smaller. With Mnemosyse, however, it was difficult to get a sense of my progress. Suddenly I'm just out of cards. Looks like SuperMemo provides lots of charts and graphs. Can you see how many cards you've learned and how many are still to go?

Vocabulary Software - krusher - 2006-07-26

This is a good flashcard site: http://kanjicafe.com/ It has heaps of really cool features - but I'll let you guys see for yourself. (Side note: the guy who made this site runs the online Japanese store rolomail.com - he sells kanji charts like you would find in a Japanese high-school classroom - I bought them and they are absolutly fantastic.)

Vocabulary Software - laxxy - 2006-07-28

Ricardo Wrote:On the Palm you can use PAdict (freeware) and KingKanji (shareware) specifically for Japanese, or several other flashcards softwares for any language. A good starting point is the PalmGear site.

BTW, I just made a few scripts to bring the RTK site to my Palm. Big Grin It's so nice to carry the site with me to study-on-the-go... Wink
[]s!
I am using Twinkle on Palm, and it's really a great program, completely outclassing KingKanji or SuperMemo or anything else I've seen so far. I encourage all Palm owners to try it.

Vocabulary Software - Ricardo - 2006-07-28

Thanks, seems interesting - and the price is just right! :-D

If anyone is interested, here's the site: http://twinkle.sourceforge.net/

Vocabulary Software - distefam - 2006-09-04

I downloaded SuperMemo 2004 for use on my MacBook Pro (running windows in Parallels desktop) this setup was cumbersome to say the least and the software didn't impress me. I know I didn't give it a fair shot, but the interface was atrocious. I liked the concept; however, so I searched for a Mac OSX native version of the software.

I have tried iFlash, but I liked the concept of SuperMemo better. In my search I stumbled upon a program called Genius (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13938), which is, as far as I can tell, based on the same algorithm as SuperMemo, and sports a nice OSX GUI. Oh, and it's also a universal binary so it not only runs natively in OSX but natively on my Intel processor.

I haven't used it much yet, but after I have ran it through its paces, I will post a more detailed review of it. Until then, check it out, and let me know if you've heard of it/used it before.

Vocabulary Software - guppy - 2006-09-06

I tried Genius for a short time (very short time) and realized that I couldn't have the multiple card sides that iFlash has. However, I do agree, I'm not a big fan of the iFlash algorithm. That's the only shortcoming I've found. Acutally, I don't think it has one.


I'm interested to see how Genius goes for you. Let us know. I downloaded it again
just in case...

Vocabulary Software - distefam - 2006-10-21

I switched back to iFlash from Genius. Genius was a nice program, but it was annoying to have to type your answer instead of a simple flash card approach (especially having to change my keyboard input from japanese to english and back almost every card).

The closest thing to an algorithm in iFlash appears to be the interval mode, however it does not adhere to the strict leitner approach of moving an incorrectly answered card back to 0, but instead decreases it's 'score'.

Also, I'm not sure about the default spacing values. I found a chart online with different values, but they seem very spaced out. http://www.flashcardexchange.com/docs/leitner

I was wondering if anyone has used flashcardexchange.com (with the pro membership for leitner) and if you have what are your thoughts on it?

Also, if anyone knows of another flashcard website, please let us know.