Flashcards - the full collection of articles

It was back in 2011 that I wrote my first post dedicated to the use of flashcards for learning Chinese, entitled "Flashcards: Just do it". And this remains my strong recommendation for anyone who isn't yet an "advanced" student of Chinese (or any language you might be learning).

Since then, I have written a number of posts dedicated to the use of flashcards, and this article brings all such posts together into a full compilation - to make it easier for you to find them all ...

• Flashcards: Just do it (I don't think I could be more explicit about how important flashcards are if you really want to accelerate your language learning)
• My long romance with flashcards (This post is about how I got into flashcards - after first trying and failing and giving up - to finally doing it properly)
• The 'redneck' guide to flashcards (A humorous look at "You know you should be using flashcards if ...")
• How many flashcards does it take to change a lightbulb? (Here I give you an early insight into my actual flashcard deck, with lots of stats about its content and my usage, with some early and some recent examples of cards added)
• Getting sentenced in Chinese (In this article I talk about why I had moved to learning sentences and not just words, and how to 'roll your own' sentences)
• A clever butcher uses a cleaver (As you can see from the heading, you can actually create really clever sentences which link words, making them much easier to memorise)
• "Write on!!" - reviewing Skritter for iOS (Here I reviewed the Skritter iOS app, coming to the conclusion it's a great flashcard-style system for reading & writing Chinese)
• The one flashcard I review more than any other (A little tongue-in-cheek article about vocabulary :)

The above articles are specifically about flashcards, and the number of articles will grow over time. I make many other references to flashcards in articles, especially those in the Heisig series, as well as in terms of 'dragon tattoo' posts and 'Charlie Brown' posts and 'flexible' posts and 'snake' posts and 'boat' posts and 'horse' posts (and many others) where I include sentences that can easily be copied-and-pasted into your own home-grown flashcard pack.

And for those who are wondering, I have been using the Anki flashcard software (originally on Windows, then Mac, now mainly on iOS) - it's fantastic software, for many many reasons.

And, just to make my point clear, there is one post you really should read: Flashcards: just do it!

As (confusing) as possible

I was revising flashcards recently, and in a relatively short space of time there were sentences that included 尽可能 (jǐnkěnéng - as much as possible) and 尽力 (jìnlì - trying one's hardest).

Aside: 尽 (jin) means something like 'to the furthest extent', so since 力 means 'strength' and 可能 means 'possible', you can see how (尽X) words would work. 

Anyway, so my mind noticed - because the two sentences appeared just minutes apart - that in one I found myself saying jǐn (third tone - which is correct) and the other I said jìn (fourth tone - correct too). Chinese is always confusing - I've written about this plenty before - but I got to wondering when each would be correct.

The other word which then popped into my mind was 尽快 so I looked that up too ... damn!  The dictionary showed that it could be both jǐnkuài OR jìnkuài. So strange.

I was speaking to Judy about this oddity the other day, and she - as a HK'er who uses the traditional character system rather than the simplified system - pointed out the following ...

• This is a known oddity in Chinese, and even HK people note this when studying Mandarin
• If you use traditional characters, the words are written 儘可能 and 盡力, which shows us that actually they are not the same character in the traditional set (the 亻 component exists) - which partly explains why the one is third tone and the other is fourth tone
• 尽量 gets this right, because the one traditional variation is 盡量 which consistently uses the fourth tone (jìnliàng) while 儘量 consistently uses the third tone (jǐnliàng)
• However, when you look up 尽快 in the dictionary, you strangely find that not only can it be written using both forms of the traditional character (盡快 and 儘快), but even the matching tones that we observed above don't work here!

I guess this is a point of theoretical interest. It's nice to know, but if you're learning by listening & talking (and not just reading) then you'll get these points right anyway. Like in my case, I was actually correctly using the respective first & third tones without realising it - because that's how I learned each - and it was more coincidence than anything that I noticed it.

TL;DR:  Probably the right advice in this case is (a) listen to Chinese more (obviously!) and (b) if you're a flashcards kinda person (and you ought to be, if you're not yet advanced) then make a point of sometimes reading them out aloud - making sure the tones you're saying match the tones you're reading in the pinyin.

I've written before about words which - although the pronunciation remains the same - the meanings can be really flexible. But in this case it's about having the same meaning, but different pronunciations. Do you have any particular words which are as confusing as possible to you? Please leave a comment below ...

The one flashcard I review more than any other

:)

Ridiculously flexible words

When you start learning Chinese, you figure out relatively quickly how the language puts characters together to make words.

Since 好 (hǎo) means 'good', it makes sense that 好友 is a 'close friend', 好看 is 'good looking', 好处 is an 'advantage', 好心 is 'kind hearted', and so on.

Deep down, I want Chinese to be like this all the time: consistent, and easy to learn. Unfortunately, life isn't fair. And Chinese isn't like this.

The one character, more than any others I have found, that seems to represent so many different things, is the character 节 / 節 (usually pronounced jié). The MDBG dictionary provides this selection of possible meanings: "festival / holiday / node / joint / section / segment / part / to economize / to save / to abridge / moral integrity / classifier for segments, e.g. lessons, train wagons, biblical verses".

I was seeing this character appearing in so many (very different) words, which is what got me thinking,  including: 节目 (jié​mù) = program;  春节 (Chūn​jié) = Spring Festival (but it also applies to most festivals including Christmas & Valentines Day);  章节 (zhāng​jié) = chapter;  细节 (xì​jié) = details;  空气调节 (kōng​qì​tiáo​jié) = aircon;  etc.

Not sure about you, but I find this confusing!

In an attempt to gain control of this character, with Judy's help, I came up with the following sentence to put in my flashcard pack.

     On Thanksgiving, frugal people might buy energy-saving lightbulbs in order to save money
     在感恩节，节俭的人可能买节能的灯泡来节省金钱
     在感恩節，節儉的人可能買節能的燈泡來節省金錢
     zài Gǎn'ēnjié, jiéjiǎn de rén kěnéng mǎi jiénéng de dēngpào lái jiéshěng jīnqián

(And if you remember, it really does help to create 'special' sentences for you flashcard pack, as I've written about here: The clever butcher uses a cleaver)


What about you? Do you have a character in mind that has many meanings? If so, please leave a comment below (anonymous notes are welcome too!).

Heisig 2 - past 2000 characters

Hi all

The last you heard about my progress studying book two of the Heisig method [of learning to read & write Chinese] was in January, where I admitted that I had started studying the book again, after failing to get off the ground a few months before that.

Back in July 2012 I kinda started the book for the first time, but because I didn't get into a regular habit, the days between picking up the book kept increasing, and after a while I just shelved it. Literally.

So why was this year's attempt more successful? Mainly because I went with the flow more, put less pressure on myself, and took time to enjoy it more. And three months later, I'm still progressing nicely, according to plan.

So this is how it looks:

• I had to accept that although I did Book 1 in three months - that was right for that book at that time. This book is different, and this time is different. So this year's goal suits this year's circumstances.
• Thus I have set myself the goal of completing the book by the end of 2013, which amounts to just over 4 characters a day. That doesn't seem like much, but given that I'm also doing podcasts and other full-sentence flashcards, this is on top of that. It's enough. 
• I completed the first 500 characters of Book 2 (making it a total count of 2000) on 9 April, which is about 5 characters a day - not bad.  I don't do it every day, I'm still not fully into the habit, but it's regular enough.
• I'm much better about revision than I was with Book 1, which is part of the reason I'm taking longer to finish the book. I am OK with that :)
• I use TWO METHODS to revise: (a) I keep going back in the book, sometimes the most recent chapter, sometimes even earlier chapters; (b) I also started using an Anki flashcard pack (downloaded off the site's free collection of packs) - which tests Chinese-to-English. I began that in late Feb, setting it to introduce five 'new' characters a day, so that it will also reach the end of the set by the end of the year. Of course, I will always be slightly further ahead with the book than with the flashcards, so actually it is a pure revision mechanism.
• Although I complained in January that the characters in this book were much more complicated, actually it's not that bad. Of course, on average, they are more complex than Book 1, but they're really not that bad. So far.

So that's where I am.  Is anyone else reading this post also doing Book 2? Or anyone who has already finished Book 2 that has comments or suggestions? Would love to hear from you.

Mandarin is just a series of maths formulae

I have successfully found a series of formulae that works out a word's meaning by looking at the characters which make up that word!!!!


An earlier post of mine entitled Permit Access (permit+permit+exist+take) got me thinking (and it's always scary when I think) ...

In taking the phrase "permit access" and dissecting the Chinese word 允许存取 into its component parts, I found that while on one hand (permit+permit=permit, because both 允 and 许 mean permit, as does the compound word 允许); and on the other hand you also get (exist+take=access), which is a completely different make-up.  

As an actuary, I have a background in maths & stats, and I started wondering whether I could create a series of mathematical equations to help you work out how to derive the meaning of any two characters which have been combined to create a compound word.

And by golly I think I've done it!   It's time to take out your high school maths textbooks in order to understand Chinese better :-)

When 1+2=3
As we saw in the above-mentioned article, the word 存取 (cúnqǔ) can be calculated as follows:  access=exist+take.  Think of it like "take something that exists" - it makes up a logical build-up, like 1+2=3. Simple. This logic can be seen in many other two-character words, including:
     你好 (nǐhǎo): hello = you are good
     满意 (mǎnyì): satisfied = full thinking
     意外 (yìwài): accident = outside your thoughts
     过奖 (guòjiǎng): flatter = pass the reward
     怕痒 (pàyǎng): fear the itch = ticklish

When 1+1=1
This one is mathematically slightly less intuitive, but in Chinese it makes total sense.  We also have from the previous article that 允许 (yǔnxǔ) is 'permit', and in simple terms: 'permit'=permit+permit (允+许=允许).  Good, for once Chinese seems simple. Mathematically, this can be written as 1+1=1  :-)   This is a common enough construct, and you can also see it in words like:
     讨论 (tǎolùn): discuss = discuss+discuss
     练习 (liànxí): practise = practise+practise
     自己 (zìjǐ): self = self+self
     选择 (xuǎnzé): choose = choose+choose
     依赖 (yīlài): reply = rely+rely
     应该 (yīnggāi): should = should+should
     休息 (xiūxi): rest = rest+rest
     帮助 (bāngzhù): help = help+help
     号码 (hàomǎ): number = number+number
(And so many others: 犯罪, 错误, 继续, ...)

But going beyond the equations from the earlier article, we can also observe some others in use ...


When -1+1=0
This is well-known way of creating words in Mandarin, and there are plenty of blog posts where people have written about this. Some of the better known examples include:
     多少 (duōshao): lots+little = how much
     左右 (zuǒyòu): left+right = approximately
     上下 (shàngxià): up+down = about
     大小 (dàxiǎo): big+small = size
     东西 (dōngxi): east+west = things
     买卖 (mǎimài): buy+sell = business


When 1+2=12
     楼下 (lóuxià): building+down = downstairs
     水平 (shuǐpíng): water+level = horizontal
     领带 (lǐngdài): neck+strap = necktie
     声频 (shēngpín): sound+frequency = audio frequency
(And I'm sure you can derive many more instances of this type yourself!)


When 1-1=1
Yes, this exists too - where even introducing a completely contradictory word doesn't change the meaning of the first ...
     忘记 (wàngjì): forget+remember = forget
     全部 (quánbù): whole+part = whole
     但是 (dànshì): but+indeed = but
     毒药 (dúyào): poison+medicine = poison


When 376+1=1
     白痴 (báichī): white(!)+dumb = dumb
     干净 (gānjìng): dry(!)+clean = clean
     原谅 (yuánliàng): source(!)+forgive = forgive
     愉快 (yúkuài): pleasant+fast(!) = pleasant


When 1+2=634
How about this ...
     漂亮 (piàoliang): pretty = tossed light
     面包 (miànbāo): surface+package = bread
     马上 (mǎshàng): horse+on = immediately
     有机 (yǒujī): have+machine = organic
     厉害 (lìhai): severe+injury = awesome
     消息 (xiāoxi): extinguish+rest = news

Conclusion

OK, so I lied. I really have not succeeded in breaking Mandarin down into a number of mathematical formulae. I think most of you figured that out when I announced that 1+1=1   :-)   

In fact, I've warned you before about the problems of trying to be too logical with Chinese, in a post called Mandarin is not "antidisestablishmentarian".

But it's still instructive when trying to remember words - and in learning another language you really do need to learn a lot of words - to consider how compounds are put together, and to be conscious about what you're taking in, rather than relying only on brute force to absorb it all.

Under the blankets, with a torch

It's a secret, so I'm not telling anyone, but I have started Heisig Book 2 again. Shhhh ...

As you might remember from last July, I wrote a post called I have begun Heisig Book 2. Kinda.  At that stage - just 3 weeks after beginning - I was already behind 'schedule', and that was really disappointing for me because I managed to do the entire Book 1 in about 3 months. By August, just a month later, I was writing a post called Total failure - I simply did not have enough time to study Heisig, and decided that the little spare time I had should rather be spent doing flashcards rather than additional characters.

(To give you a sense of my time shortages, last year I did over 50 flights, which is approximately one business trip every second week. Ouch.)

Well, at the start of January this year, I picked up the book again, and began with character 1501.


What I'm doing differently - lessons from last time

1. No goals
I didn't set myself any goals - last time I actually found that disheartening. Instead I decided I would first get some momentum going, and get a sense of what time I would have available - and only then decide what goals to set myself. I still don't have a solid rhythm going, and I'm still not working through the book each day, but I'm enjoying the pressure-free attitude to Book 2, which means at least I'm enjoying it.

2. More revision
As I had remarked in the July article, Book 2 is more difficult - obviously. This means I really need more time with the revision because these more complex images can fade quite quickly in the beginning. I'm less panicked about finishing within a certain time frame, so revision actually feels like it's contributing to my goal of learning to read, rather than delaying my goal of getting through the book.

3. Character-to-English
When I did Book 1, my focus was on being able to see the character and know it's meaning. This is, after all, my challenge when I'm trying to read.  Learning to write was less important to me, so the need for English-to-Character is less. After focusing on C2E when studying the book, I loaded up an Anki flashcard deck, and my revision of the book was based on E2C.  I found this an extremely enjoyable and efficient approach, and I'm doing the same ... learning C2E mainly while studying the book. Later on I will load up a flashcard pack for Book 2.

4. Enjoy
I was not enjoying learning Book 2 when I picked it up last year. Don't get me wrong ... I wanted to learn the book, and I remember how excited I was when the book was first delivered to me, but it was the wrong time, and the wrong attitude - and it failed.  Now I'm enjoying it - and although I can't guarantee that I won't fail again, I at least feel like I'm on the right track.

5. Don't give up (in the long run)
I gave up in August, it was the wrong time for so many reasons. But I didn't give-up totally. I knew I would pick it up again, at the right time. And I did pick it up again. And this might be the right time :-)

Permit Access (permit+permit+exist+take)

The following word appeared in my flashcards this morning:
     允许存取
     允許存取
     yǔnxǔ cúnqǔ
     permit access

I remember the day when I added it to my flashcards! I was trying to log in to a Chinese-based website, and one of the buttons I was asked to press was [允许存取]. I had never seen this word before, so looked it up, and found it it means "permit access".

Dissection
That seemed like a mouthful, so I dug a little further into the phrase to understand it better, and hopefully to be able to remember it in future.  In this short post, I want to do two things: (1) give you the chance to copy & paste this phrase into your flashcards if it's not there already; and (2) take you through my thinking while I dissected the word, in case that's helpful to you for your own learning.

My starting point in understanding the phrase was to consider the meaning of the characters, and for this I used the Heisig keywords:
     sufficient permit deposit take

What?  Here's another example of when using Heisig keywords doesn't help - although I am (as you probably know) a big fan of the method. Anyway, so let's try something more powerful ...

If you use a dictionary, you get a more meaningful breakdown of the characters:
     (permit) (access)
     = (permit permit) + (exist take)


Conclusion
And I guess that's why I thought this was an interesting phrase ...

 - The first word is an example which is made up of two characters, both of which have the same meaning as the word they make up. (permit+permit=permit)
 - The second word is made up of two characters which build up logically (access = take something that exists)

In future when you read or hear the phrase, you will automatically know what it means without having to dissect again. Practice helps! But when faced with new words & phrases, it's worth taking a few moments to explore them, and this is an example of how I did that.


PS. If you did not know the phrase before reading this article, and you haven't already copied it into your flashcards, you have to ask yourself why not?

The "strict photographer" guide to pinyin pronunciation

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post entitled The "sleeping cats" guide to pinyin pronunciation, which was actually one of my more popular posts, I guess because amongst all the beginners learning Chinese, it sometimes is the really simple stuff which is most confusing.

Today, while doing flashcards, the sentence below popped up again, which reminded me of a common pronunciation mistake I used to make (and probably still make, I'm just in denial!) - and that triggered a desire to write another "pinyin pronunciation" guide - which is this post.

 - "Hold that pose, don't move," said the photographer.
 - "Bǎo​chí nage zī​shì, bié dòng," shèyǐng​shī shuō.
 - “保持那个姿势，别动,” 摄影师说。

I can't remember where I found this sentence, but somehow it made it into my flashcard pack. And reading it today immediately reminded me of how much difficulty I had at the beginning differentiating between pinyin's 'she' and 'shi' - and both sounds appear in the word for 'photographer' which is why this is a particularly interesting word (for beginners) or interesting sentence (for intermediates).

The first syllable of ''shèyǐng​shī" is shè, which actually rhymes with the end of the word 'photographer' or perhaps I can even say 'photograph-uh'. The final syllable shī might best be written as 'shr' - sounding as if there is no vowel.

Perhaps if you hear it pronounced correctly, it would be easier to understand?  So visit MDBG.net​, (my favourite online dictionary, which I've written about before) and specifically look up the word photographer.  You can hear it pronounced by clicking on (>>) and then on the audio button. Do it.

So there you have it - a relatively common pronunciation mistake for beginners, but if you learn just one word correctly - photographer - you will have a clear picture of how to say it correctly. Forever.


PS. If you haven't read it already, I've written a post in the past about the mispronunciation of the word 'pronunciation'. Check it out.

When the boat arrives ...

The other day, in response to something I said in a Mandarin conversation, the person replied, "船到桥头自然直" (chuán dào qiáotóu zìrán zhí). I stared blankly - these were words that my brain figured I should understand, but I didn't quite get what they were saying.

Actually, it's a Chinese idiom - and I've had lots to say about such idioms in the past. Literally it means "When the boat gets to the bridge-head, it will naturally go straight", or in other words, "Everything will be alright."

I made a note to copy this into my flashcards, and when I got home I typed "船到" into my dictionary, only to discover that there are actually a few idioms that begin when the boat arrives.


Without much explanation, for your interest, amusement & education, here they are:

船到江心，补漏迟
chuán dào jiāng xīn, bǔ lòu chí
Once the ship has reached the middle of the river, it's too late to plug the leak
(English equivalent: No point in closing the stable door after the horse has bolted)

船到码头，车到站
chuán dào mǎtóu, chē dào zhàn
The ship has docked, the carriage has reached the station
(The job is over, it's time to relax)

船到桥门，自会直
chuán dào qiáomén, zì huì zhí
When the ship arrives at the bridge we can deal with the problem
(No point in worrying until it actually happens)


And actually, there are a few such idioms which talk about cars arriving too:

车到山前必有路
chē dào shān qián bìyǒu lù
When we get to the mountain, there'll be a way through
(The same meaning as the opening idiom about boats)

车到山前自有路
(A slight variation of the above)

车到山前必有路,船到桥头自然直 车到山前必有路，船到桥头自然直
chē dào shān qián bìyǒu lù, chuán dào qiáotóu zìrán zhí
When we get to the mountain, there'll be a way through and when the boat gets to the pier-head, it will go straight with the current
(This is a mega version combining both ships & cars)


Make sure you quickly copy at least one of these into your flashcards NOW, before you realise that your ship has sailed  :-)

I have begun Heisig Book 2. Kinda.

If you've been following my posts, you'll know that I have been preparing for a while to study the second book in the Heisig & Richardson series about learning to read & write Chinese. And I've been re-discovering good things too!

I set myself a goal to begin on 1 July (after fully re-studying Book 1), and to finish by year-end. Although I did the first book in about 3 months, I decided not to get carried away this time.

The bad news: I'm already behind schedule.
I thought I would begin at about 10 characters a day, expecting to slow down as I needed more time to revise. As of last night (21 days in) I had learned just 170 characters. I have also done a lot less revision than I should have done by now. Damn.

The good news: I am 170 characters further than when I started 3 weeks ago. (Even slow progress is progress, right?)


Here are some of the things I've noticed along the way:

• It is definitely going more slowly that Book 1 - but that isn't a surprise, right?
• The average number of strokes in the first couple of hundred characters looks to be about 10, which is quite a bit more than the first book
• My retention in the early weeks of the first book was nearly flawless - it was easy enough to remember the stories because the images were clear & obvious
• I'm not suggesting that there is a massive step up from the first to the second book - it's all about progressing slowly from character 1 to character 3000
• I'm mainly behind schedule because of work-based time constraints, and not because of a lack of interest in completing book 2
• There are some really strange keywords (the preface even explains this was necessary in order to ensure each character has a unique keyword), like: "father's sister" (maybe it would be easier if my father had a sister :-), "smidgen" (OK, I can cope with this), "cinnabar red" (erm ...), "flouds" (you'll get there, don't worry), "paulownia" (uhm ...), "vermilion" (sheesh ...), "succor" (hello dictionary), "brick heated bed" (seriously?)
• I got a little confused by 1559 ("widowed") until I realised that the 'head' primitive is actually written in traditional (not simplified) style
• And I smiled when I saw their copy-and-paste screw-up in character 1663 ("sow" - verb)
• It's so nice to finally get to know characters intimately that I have only come across in sentences in my flashcard pack
• It's clear that the authors have learned from Book 1, and they are improving Book 2 with this. For example, certain sub-primitives are getting different images to what they were allocated in the first book - I like what they've done here with Eiffel Tower and Disneyland
• And finally, I have created a Harry Potter themed image in all my Heisig work ("snitch" - I know it's not the way the authors intended it to be interpreted, but it made the story/character very clear for me)

So I'm really enjoying myself. Time constraints prevent me from doing any more time than I'm doing at the moment, but I'm enjoying the progress - and the fact that I'm already recognising characters from around, shows it's already adding value.

"Write on!!" - reviewing Skritter for iOS

Before the official release of the app for iOS, I was approached by the Skritter team to test it, and perhaps write a review. I wasn't offered any freebies, and was given total freedom to write my own review, so I'm comfortable that this is a neutral perspective.

Also, while it was tempting to publish my review around the time of the official release when all those other reviews were being published, I was worried that I would write it more in light of my excitement of having a new novelty toy to play with. I was more keen to actually get a sense of the 'longevity' of Skritter for iOS ... how long before the excitement died down?? (Hint: It still hasn't)

For no particular reason, I'm going to write this review in the style of a FAQ. (By the way, if you are rushed for time, just read Q1, 4, 6, 7, 13. Oh heck, just read it all - this isn't a particularly long post :-)

1. Would you recommend Skritter iOS to others?
Yes

2. Will everyone benefit from using it?
In theory, yes.  But I think there are plenty of Chinese learners who should be focusing more on pinyin, vocab acquisition, tones, and listening skills - and Skritter should perhaps wait a little longer.

3. What about the iOS experience?
From an iOS point of view, the implementation of Skritter is fantastic. It's sleek, artistic, fast, powerful, flexible. It's a great example of using iOS to the full.

4. Did you use Skritter before testing the iOS app?
No. In fact, I had a completely wrong idea about Skritter, so I never bothered before!
I'm glad I took the time to play with it. For example, I had assumed it was just about learning to write characters, but actually it's much more than that. Yes it can be used for that, but it has an amazing selection of vocab, so that it goes way beyond individual characters, into compound-words, phrases and sentences.

5. Does Skritter iOS cater nicely to people who haven't used the website before?
In some ways, Skritter is intuitive to use. But I think the team could do a little more to help people who are totally new to Skritter. For example, there are many settings in the preferences pane that I'm not sure what they actually do - a clarification sentence would be nice for each. It talks about numbers of items added, number of items synchronised, etc. - but it wasn't obvious to me what the difference is. I remember having to add characters one at a time, up to a hundred at a time, although I really wasn't sure why I was having to do that when I had already selected a list - shouldn't it just add the whole list?

6. For actually learning characters, would you recommend Heisig or Skritter?
I still believe that the Heisig method is a better way to learn characters (either reading or writing) than practising writing (on paper, in the air, or with Skritter). I strongly recommend that Heisig should come first, and then Skritter should follow. And yes, definitely use Skritter once you can read & write characters.

7. If you already can read/write through Heisig, why bother with Skritter?
Ah, well this is where I'm finding Skritter to be particularly amazing.
I believe Heisig is the best way to learn to read & write - certainly the fastest with least effort. But it doesn't teach you the pronunciation (pinyin), nor does it show you the characters being used in compound words. I'm finding Skritter to be an excellent bridge between the Heisig world, and the practical world of reading and writing more significant texts. Highly recommended.

8. What's your biggest concern about Skritter iOS?
I think I'll say it's the cost. I don't doubt that a huge amount has been invested in developing this great app, but at just under $10 per month, that's a huge investment, even over a year. I think a lot of people will be excluded from signing up at this price (even the discounted prices), and I'm curious to know whether I'll still be happy to be paying this before a year is up. In a world where apps cost a few dollars, this is on the other end of the scale.
I will say that the Skritter team are not trying to trick you to paying them money, though! As my trial period was ending, they sent me quite a few emails warning me that I was going to start getting charged. No one could claim they were charged because they forgot to cancel, by mistake. Well done Skritter.

9. Any technical thoughts about the app?
There are some strokes that Skritter keeps saying I'm wrong, even though I find myself writing perfectly over the hint-line, mostly commonly 阝 and many near-vertical lines. Odd. I'm inclined to believe it's my handwriting and not Skritter, but when my lines appear to overlap perfectly with the underlying hints, it makes me wonder.

10. Do you like the font that underlies Skritter?
Actually yes, it's a beautiful font - lovely. I do wish however that we were given the option of a second font - something that was a little more computer-perfect. Most of the characters I see are of course on a computer, and Skritter's font is slightly more stylistic. This means I find myself positioning/angling some of my strokes in ways I would expect based on what I see most of the time. From memory, characters like 火, 垂, 民 all are slightly different as a computer font than the Skritter font. This means either Skritter thinks I'm wrong at times, or it ends up moving my stroke far away from where I placed it. I can learn to live with just one Skritter font, but a less stylised one might be a nice option. One day.

11. What about Skritter as a flashcard app?
Well, it is sold as an SRS (spaced repetition system), but so far it doesn't feel like that. Maybe there is a setting I haven't used yet, but very few characters have come up a second time, I still seem to be working my way through the list, one phrase at a time. And although it tests my pinyin & tones & definitions, it feels like only 1 in 25 cards is non-handwriting. I'm still waiting for the 'repetition' to begin, let alone the 'spaced repetition'.

12. What extras would you like to see?
Firstly, I've simply added words from two lists: "Integrated Chinese 2" and "Business". And Skritter seems to have thrown these into a pot, deciding for itself which characters to feed to me when. Sometimes (particularly on a plane, flying somewhere for a business meeting) I feel like I'm in "business mode", and I'd like to learn words only from the Business list, but I can't do that.
Secondly, it would be nice to have a search facility. As I mentioned above, the character 垂 was different, if I remember correctly, to how it appears on the computer. But I can't search for a single character within Skritter in order to show you how it looks. Also, sometimes I remember struggling with certain characters, and it would be nice to find them again to practise, but I don't seem to be able to do that on the iOS app.
Thirdly, when trying to decide which lists to use, it would have been nice for the list description to include the number of characters that I'd be getting by selecting that list.
Fourthly, the app is really feature-packed, and it would not surprise me to find out that all the things I think need to change are already a part of the app - maybe I just don't know how to do it! :-) (For example, at one stage I thought a nice option would be to retain my stokes, rather than replacing them with the right strokes - but then I discovered there's a setting for that!)

13. In the opening paragraph you spoke about concern about the excitement of using Skritter iOS dying down ...
Yes, that was a real possibility. I've used many tools and websites to improve my Chinese; I've started listening to many podcasts - but over time I find I get bored of them, and just realise one day that I don't use them anymore. But so far Skritter has been really good, and I continue to enjoy using it. It's a nice distraction when I have a couple of minutes to spare, it's a nice break from podcasts, or Heisig Book 2. And I have definitely got value from using it.

So I am still using Skritter iOS. And I am still benefitting from Skritter iOS. And I am still happy to continue to pay for the Skritter iOS app.


tl;dr: If you can afford it, then I think you probably should use it too.

Write on!!

A clever butcher uses a cleaver

If you were learning English, then the above sentence might be a good one to stick in your flashcards. Picturing a butcher who wears professorial glasses, holding a cleaver, might make it easier  - both visually and audio-wise - to remember the new word 'cleaver'. It's certainly more memorable then the sentence: "Use a cleaver to cut meat."

And this is the logic I've tried to use when finding new sentences to enter into my flashcard deck.

As you would have seen from my post a few months back about finding sentences, I use a variety of sources for my deck. But it was only when I was reviewing this sentence below, that I realised that there was a clever/cleaver trick that I was unconsciously using.

     Lennie stopped chewing and swallowed it whole
     Lúnní tíngzhǐ jǔjué, húlún yàn​le xiàqu​
     伦尼停止咀嚼，囫囵咽了下去
     倫尼停止咀嚼，囫圇咽了下去

While saying the sentence during my daily flashcard revision, I realised that this sentence had a clever/cleaver style of repetition in the words 'Lúnní​' and 'húlún'.  It's not a big thing, but I realised it was a bit of a mental crutch that I had indeed being relying on when learning the cards - and on a few occasions when I was trying to recall a word in conversation.

I went back through some of my flashcards, and found that so many sentences I'd chosen had inadvertently used this trick, and I've actually tried to be more intentional in this regard.


OK, so now that you know this trick, there really is nothing else to say. If you choose not to take advantage of this, that's your choice. But if you choose to use this, here are some sentences that I've found in my deck which someone was clever/cleaver in constructing.

If you'd like to copy these into your deck, feel free ...

     Bees store honey to get through winter

     mìfēng wèi guòdōng zhùcún fēngmì

     蜜蜂为过冬贮存蜂蜜

     蜜蜂為過冬貯存蜂蜜

     trick:  mìfēng vs fēngmì

     I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow
     wǒ tóu yi pèngdào zhěntou jiù shuìzháo le
     我头一碰到枕头就睡着了
     我頭一碰到枕頭就睡著了
     trick: tóu / zhěntou (although, you really should have noticed this without clever/cleaver sentences!)

     She sat there motionless, nothing can motivate her
     tā yidòng​budòng de zuò zài​nar, méiyǒu​shénme néng cùdòng tā
     她一动不动地坐在那儿，没有什么能促动她
     她一動不動地坐在那兒，沒有甚麼能促動她
     trick: yidòng​budòng / cùdòng

     If you lose a credit card you should report it to the police
     diūshī xìnyòngkǎ yào xiàng jǐngchá bàoshī
     丢失信用卡要向警察报失
     丟失信用卡要向警察報失
     trick: diūshī  / bàoshī

     Don't disappoint your parents
     bùyào gūfù fùmǔ duì nǐde qīdài
     不要辜负父母对你的期待
     不要辜負父母對你的期待
     trick: gūfù / fùmǔ

     Mr Li the shopkeeper has two assistants
     Lǐ lǎobǎn yǒu liǎng gè zhùlǐ
     李老板有两个助理
     李老闆有兩個助理
     trick: Lǐ / zhùlǐ


And here are a number of other sentences that appear in my flashcards, but I'll leave you to do the translations yourself if you want to use them. The trick might be around using the same sound, the same character, or anything else that makes it easier to recall one word using another part of the sentence:

这是违法的行为
我花了一些时间决定花钱买哪种花
我们可以推断会议推迟了
我们铸蜡成烛
纤维 / 维生素
租约下个月到期
耳朵, 耳环, 耳机, 耳语, 耳子
个人开户账户申请表
每个透支的支票
对于妇女来说就业就会有牺牲
薪水会直接汇入你的帐户
这个座位很小坐得很不舒服
非工作人员禁止进入
他们企图蒙骗公众耳目 (cheat! sounds like 'qitu')


Just to be clear ... this is not a miracle. This will not take you from a beginner to intermediate in record time. But it will make it a little easier to remember words, and since you're already investing time in learning Chinese, you may as well take advantages of clever/cleaver tricks like this.

Don't butcher it!

How many flashcards does it take to change a lightbulb?

Some people do it daily (some people wish they did it daily!), and others only do it infrequently, or even never.


For me, spending time on flashcards has become an (almost) daily routine. I have recently already written that you should just do it, about how effective it has been for me, and to tell you how to test whether you should be using flashcards - so take a look if you haven't seen those articles.

In this next in the series, I wanted to go personal (yes, even more personal than writing about my love affair - In fact, I'm going to let you look into my actual set of flashcards, through sample sentences, numbers & dates.

Deck Statistics
Anki has a feature which gives you a whole bunch of facts about your specific deck. Here are some of mine, covering the deck itself, as well as how I've used it.

total numbers

• deck created 2.1 years ago
• total number of 'facts' is 1530 (a fact contains english, pinyin, simplified hanzi and (sometimes) traditional hanzi too)
• total number of cards is 3680 (in the early days, a fact only generated two cards: english-to-pinyin & pinyin-to-english; but after a while I extended it to three: english-to-pinyin/simplified/traditional, simplified-to-english/pinyin/traditional, pinyin-to-english/simplified/traditional)
• according to Anki, 76% of my cards are 'mature' (I've basically seen these often enough that they're 'known', 6% are 'young' (I'm currently actively working through them), and 18% are unseen.

activity

• In the last week I did 500 cards, averaging about 70 a day. According to Anki, I missed one day in the last week.
• My average over the last 3 months is 45 cards a day, and over the last year is 52 cards a day. 
• Since the deck was created, I have averaged 53 cards a day, and used Anki just under 5 days a week.
• Since the beginning, I have added less than 5 cards a day, but this has only been around 2 a day in the last year. (Remember that by entering a single 'fact' Anki automatically generates a number of 'cards' - so I would say this averages about 2 new physical entries a day, that's all.)

sample entries

From humble beginnings ...

• The first six entries in my deck are:  (know / zhīdào / 知道), (formal / zhèngshì / 正式), (about / guānyú / 关于), (accept,approve / tóngyì / 同意), (after / zhīhòu / 之后), (agree / shuōhǎo / 说好).

To a long way down the line ...

• The six latest entries are:

1. profit commission adjustment request / 盈佣调整询问函
2. There were a lot of groupies at the Michael Jackson concert in Japan / 迈克尔·杰克逊在日本的演唱会招来了许多追星族
3. to accumulate over a long period of time / 日积月累
4. Unless you say it so that your word becomes another, then it's no problem / 除非你说的词变成另外一个词，否则没问题
5. tomorrow;daybreak / 明天;天明
6. You have to tighten up the handle, it has become loose / 柄松动了，你得把螺丝拧紧

I think you'll agree that I've improved my skill level over the last two years!  And don't let this mislead you ... I don't know all the latest ones. For example, I recently needed to know the word 'loose' while talking to someone and realised I didn't know how to say that. So I looked it up in the dictionary, found a good sentence, and entered it into my deck. A few weeks will pass before this sentence comes up to the top of the pack, and then I will 'learn' it through spaced-repetition.

So that's me

If you'd like to share some of your desk statistics, I'd love to see them - whether you're a beginner or really advanced.

Most interestingly, I would love it if you could leave a comment below to say what your first few words were, what your most recent entries are, and what the time period is in between.

And if you've just started a deck of your own, perhaps since reading this series on flashcards, let us know what your first few entries have been.

The 'Redneck' guide to flashcards

Using flashcards for the purpose of studying Chinese might not be for everyone. I gave my best recommendation in this regard in the first article in the series, but if you're looking for a slightly more 'personalised' recommendation, then this article will guide you on what is best for you.

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy and his "You might be a redneck if ..." series of one-liners.


You know you should be using flashcards if ...

• When you find yourself (again!) ordering "diet coke" in English in a Chinese restaurant instead of "Jiànyí​ Kelè" ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you keep getting confused between left & right in Chinese ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you keep asking your martial arts instructor if you have good sperm, instead of good power ('jing') ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you can never quite remember the difference between 必须 and 必需 ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you looked up a word last week but you can't remember the answer ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you listen to Chinese music, and there is one word you keep hearing in songs but you still don't know what it means ... you should be using flashcards.
• If there is a Chinese character you see all over town, and you keep forgetting what it means ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you keep saying 'foreskin' when you mean to say 'briefcase' ... you should be using flashcards. 
• If you find yourself asking your Chinese friend for the 8th time, "How do you say 'influence' again?" ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you don't know which of "我什么都不知道" or "我不知道什么都" is actually correct ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you can't remember the Chinese equivalent of "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" ... you should be using flashcards. 
• If you sometimes visit Chinese websites, and you're always seeing a button that says "取消" but you don't know what it means ... you should be using flashcards. 
• If you listen to conversations, Mandarin radio or Chinese TV and there are words you still don't know ... you should be using flashcards. 
• If you are studying Chinese ... you really should be using flashcards.

And what about you? What was it in your life that convinced you that you should be using flashcards?

My long romance with flashcards

In my previous post on the topic, I recommended very strongly that you should be using flashcards as part of your Chinese-learning efforts.

In this post I'd like to write a bit about how my relationship with flashcards has gone, and why I find it one of the most useful tools available to progress one's learning.

SRS

When I started with flashcards, I used a program that was not SRS-based, which was a terrible mistake. A random-card system was fine in school when you were trying to revise the capital cities of the world, but not when you're using it as a tool to learn Chinese words. I would learn a word, and then it wouldn't appear again for weeks, by which time I'd have to learn it again. Or words that I already knew well would keep coming up - wasting my time. So I gave up on flashcards.

But it wasn't long after that I found Anki, which felt so natural that I haven't stopped using it since then.

Setting it up 

Some people load up pre-made decks when they begin - for example there are beginner's Chinese packs available that you can you download directly into Anki. However in my case, there were just a few dozen words that I wanted to learn (or so I thought!), so I chose to set up my own deck and start with only words that I cared about.

I built three fields for each 'fact':  English, pinyin, simplified Chinese. And for each 'fact', I built two 'cards' - one where the English was the question, and pinyin & Chinese were the answer; and one where pinyin was the question and English & Chinese were the answer.

To be honest, I didn't even look at the Chinese writing, I was a beginner and I stuck with English & pinyin.

Phrases & Sentences

Over time, knowing individual words wasn't enough. I needed to use sentences, and frankly my grammar was rubbish. Some of the words I was adding were coming from the About.com daily words email, and ever-practical I realised it would take just as long to copy a word into my deck as to copy a sentence - and thus it began.

Again, although my deck is made up of words & sentences that I have added myself, you can choose to take the route of downloading a pre-made deck directly into Anki, one of which is called "20,000 Chinese Sentences". Whatever works for you.

I slowly got into Chengyu (I've written about that guilty pleasure before) and have also added a few into my deck over time.

(Here are two screenshots [1] [2] of cards from my deck, if that helps give you context.)

Relevance

To make sure that I was learning words that I would be likely to use in future, whenever I looked up a word in my dictionary, and I felt that I really wanted to remember it, it became automatic to copy that word into my deck too. Took just a few seconds to make another card.

(See "Why a meal is worth more to me than my grandmother" for more thoughts on sticking to relevant learning.)

Earlier on I was just copying the word (including English, pinyin & Chinese), but over time I made sure that I found a sentence that used the word. This gave the word a context, made it easier to remember than just a lonesome word, improved my grammar, and sometimes included other useful words to learn too.

This use of sentences was so valuable to my learning that I wrote an article called Getting Sentenced in Mandarin, about how to track down good sentences.

I don't know if building up a deck from scratch sounds like a lot of effort, but if you're only doing a few a day, and since you're just copying & pasting, then it's really quick.

Do not let flashcards be your excuse. Do not spend so much time building up a deck that you never get around to using it to learn.

Chinese characters

Although I learned to recognise a few characters simply by virtue of the fact that my cards included the Chinese writing, this was incidental. It was only a couple of years ago, when I started to formally learn to read Chinese (here is Day 0 of that adventure) that I changed my flashcard practice. Instead of only using English or pinyin as the questions in Anki, I also set it to show me the Chinese version of the words & sentences I had already entered. In Anki, this change took about a minute to make - it's a great program.

And of course, having moved to Hong Kong late last year, I am now surrounded by traditional Chinese characters - but my deck was populated with simplified characters! Making some easy edits to my deck format, I added an extra field, and then any sentences that I added after that time would also get the traditional characters added too. I don't test myself based on the traditional characters, but I am still able to compare the two systems when looking at the card. And for now, that's enough.

Getting technical

More recently, rather than focusing on words from general conversation, I'm taking the time to build up vocab that I am likely to hear in meetings, or read in documents. Since I'm in the financial sector, these words include things like: assets, credit rating agency, cost of capital, assess, reserves, medical insurance, etc.

The process is the same as I've been doing - I find a word I want to learn, look it up, explore sentences of the various results to make sure I've got the right word in the right context, and then copy it into my deck. Usually it takes a few days or a few weeks before that new entry makes it into the queue for me to start learning.


So that's it for me and deck. I would love to hear about you and yours ...

Flashcards: just do it

There's a lot of debate about whether you should use flashcards for learning Chinese. And perhaps the advice I should give you is: Use it if it works for you, and don't use it if it doesn't work for you.

Simple.

But I should also state that I have benefited so massively from the use of flashcards, that I really believe you should use it - regardless of whether you think it might be useful or not.

Just do it.

My use of flashcards has evolved over the years, and that's probably why I'm still getting value out of them, starting with individual words (excluding Chinese characters), progressing through to much more complex sentences which include the hanzi.

I use Anki, which is an SRS (spaced repetition system) program that runs on most operating systems. It's incredibly intuitive, very flexible, and free. You may as well install it now, if you haven't already done so, and you can learn more about how to use it optimally in the next few posts I write.

One of the more common arguments against using flashcards is that if you are reading books & newspapers & websites in Chinese, then you will end up learning the most common words anyway, without wasting your time on words that you might almost never see.

But most students of Chinese are not at that level, and therefore most students really should be focusing on accumulating words as quickly as possible. The more words you know, the more you will understand and the more you will be able to say. A flashcard system is, in my opinion, the best way to get there.

So if you're an advanced student, flashcards might not be for you. But for anyone else ... Just do it.

(Not) learning to read Chinese - 'Black October'

If you have been paying attention, you would have noticed no updates from me on how many characters I learned lately. And there is a reason for this ...

This is an update on my experiment to learn to read Chinese. You can also read my original post on this topic, or check out all other posts on my experiment. After a bit of research I settled on Heisig's "Remembering the Simplified Hanzi" method - which is progressing really well.

October has been crazy work-wise. This included separate business trips to both India & Singapore. Leading up the trips there was a lot of preparation to do, and then after the trips there was, uhm, a lot of follow-up work to do. So I spent pretty much no time learning new hanzi - and my official total is still at 1000.

October hasn't be a total waste though ... I've been revising the first 1000 characters through flashcards (although only about 5-10 minutes a day). 

And I suppose there is a lesson here - that if something is 'available' and 'easy', then you'll do it. Anki flaschards are always loaded in the background, and if I need a quick break, or I dial into a dull conference call, then I can flash through a few quick cards.

But enough is enough! I'm missing the excitement of when I was learning 25+ new characters a day. I'm missing the urge to reach for my well-thumbed Heisig when I pop out for a quick lunch. And I want to get through the 1500 well before year-end.

So this weekend, I'm back on the wagon. I promise.  

(And if you're still thinking about trying Heisig, you can download - yes, legally - the first 108 characters here, and by Monday morning you could be 108 characters closer to fluency. If you're up for the challenge, drop us a note below, and then leave another comment when you've got through those 108. Go for it!)