Utterly stupid questions about pleco/palm etc...

[NickyR]

Hello!

I am thinking about getting a palm to help me with my Chinese on my commute.

However, I am a complete technical ditz. I do not understand gadgets at all, and, I’m afraid, have little interest in them (which probably explains the former problem).

Nevertheless, this forum has convinced me that I will shortly become a genius of Chinese if I get a palm and pleco/supermemo. Given that I know nothing about any of these things (pleco and supermemo I think I can work out, but the palm itself fills me with dread), I thought I had better ask a few questions here.

I apologise in advance if any of these questions are covered elsewhere – I did try to search (and my list was about 10 times as long before the search), but some of the posts I didn’t understand. I think the answers are probably there if you are familiar with the software, but they’re a bit more cryptic if you don’t know what to expect..) Please just direct me to the correct post if you think it answers my Qs, and accept my apologies in advance. I am blonde!

By the way, if it is relevant, I am planning to get the Palm Tungsten E – I ripped this idea directly off the pleco website – no further thought has gone into it. I won’t use it for anything but learning Chinese, but I want it to be a fairly decent screen that I can read the characters on etc…. Any comments on this also gratefully received – I anticipate getting a little ripped off on this as I don’t really know what I’m doing (eek!)

Here goes:

1. The thing that really interests me about these programmes is the spaced repetition systems – how does Pleco’s SRS work? It seems from various comments on the forum and the pleco site itself that the Pleco system is not the same as the supermemo system – it kind of looks like it might be a manual system (i.e. you yourself judge how often each “rank” should be reviewed)…. Have I understood this correctly?

2. If so, how do you find this works? And how often do you rep each rank? This seems like a negative point about pleco to me – is this what people mean when they talk about the changes in the new pleco 2.0? To an automatic system?

3. If this is true and I get the current one, will all data that I input be automatically put into the 2.0 version when I upgrade when it comes out? (I am actually cringing at the stupidity of this question, but I genuinely don’t know the answer…)

4. Can I make flashcards for whole sentences, not just words? I find this a more helpful way of learning so I would not want to lose that option… (I currently use paper cards)

5. Can I elect to have it test me both ways: character  pinyin/English AND English/pinyin to character? If so, do I need to input two different databases, or can I just select a “vice versa” function like in Mnemosyne?

6. Can I have multiple databases in the flashcards thing?

I am entirely convinced that this is perfectly adequately explained on the website but I’m still confused… b. The type of databases I am thinking of are:

i. English  pinyin and characters and vice versa

ii. Pinyin and English  characters and vice versa

I want the two because my spoken ability is better than my character writing ability and I want to be able to develop both with my gadget. I also find it a lot easier to learn the character when I’m really comfortable with the pinyin (i.,e. with the sound and use of the word)

I appreciate that I’d probably work a lot of this out by buying it and fiddling around with it, but it’s quite a big investment to enter into without knowing what I’m buying….

More questions may appear later…

[Sam]

I've been using pleco for just over a year, will comment on some of your points:

1. I don't think i use the all the flashcard features and have played around a bit with the ranks but can't rally comment

2. don't know

3. check out the plecodict website and forums, i'm sure it must be answered there

4. yep you can make flashcards for sentences and also grammar patterns, anything you want to a point

5. yes, you can custom how you want to be tested at any time very easily by ticking/unticking boxes in the preferences window

6. i'm not sure i understand your question fully. All you need is a set of vocab/sentences you want to learn with the character, pinyin, meaning and then you can change the settings to test you however you want. Any combination ie. you can ask to be shown the character and test pinyin and meaning or be asked to show character and pinyin and test meaning etc etc,

The thing I find plecodict invaluable for is the ability to write characters straight onto my palm and have the meaning come up. Beats looking radicals up in dictionaries. Plecodict also has quite a few extra free dictionaries you can add to your palm and also vocab lists from specific text book sets. See their website.

[NickyR]

Thanks Sam - those were the answers I was hoping for for questions 4-6!

[gato]

This thread has some answers to your first 2 questions:

http://www.plecoforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=614

Flashcards Simplified

[NickyR]

Thanks Gato - EXACTLY what I was looking for! I love this site!

I do wonder about my search techniques though - especially considering that I have spent the last 6 odd years of my life being a researcher.....

[gato]

Well, that thread's on the pleco site, so don't feel too bad.

[NickyR]

OK... another silly question!

So I went to get my palm today, and noone had any idea what I was talking about! This mainly centred around the fact that I can't speak Chinese very well (yet!...). The shopkeeper looked a little alarmed when he thought I wanted to buy the palm of someone's hand... and then a little weirded out when he thought I wanted to buy a piece of metal.....

Does the Palm Tungsten E/E2 have a CHinese name?? I just assumed that the shop person would recognise the name Palm Tungsten E (obviously a bit anglocentric of me...). I know there is a post here where someone wrote the word for PDA down somewhere, which I now can't find... so I'd be really grateful if someone could post both:

1) The word for PDA (pinyin and characters); and

2) The word for Palm Tungsten E or E2

Thanks very much - I promise to pay my dues to other newbies on stuff like this when I can speak Chinese!

[roddy]

Where did you try to get it? If it was in the local 小卖部 then you're not going to have much luck. When I was looking for one initially I tried the likes of Guomei, Dazhong, etc, with no joy - you need to head to a dealer at Zhongguancun or Bainaohui in Chaoyang. The major retailers will just sell you a glorified electronic dictionary. I've bought two devices from these people who have a shop on the ground floor of Bainaohui with no problems - they don't seem to be updating their website with new prices though. Ordering online is an option if you know exactly what you want.

Palm in Chinese is 奔迈, but to be honest anyone who sells the things is likely to recognize the word in English. Advantages of the smaller places is that although you have to track them down in my experience they do actually know what they are selling and can tell you the difference between the various models.

There's a list of Palm E2 stockists and prices here.

[gato]

PDA is called 掌上电脑.

Maybe you can print out the Chinese web page for E2.

http://www.palm.com/cn/products/handhelds/tungsten-e2/

A list of Palm dealers in China.

http://www.palm.com/cn/products/wheretobuy/resellers01.html

掌上电脑经销商

[mikelove]

Just to provide an official answer on #3: yes, it will certainly be possible to import your flashcards from the current version into 2.0, and it should work pretty much seamlessly in most cases. However, the converter utility for that will probably only come out with the finished (non-beta) release of 2.0.

BTW, for anyone who hasn't been on our site recently we've posted a second batch of screenshots from 2.0 that are several orders of magnitude more interesting than the first set: http://www.pleco.com/pdpreview.html. Zhuyin, stroke order, document reader, flashcard testing modes and the new tone-coloring feature are all covered.

[adrianlondon]

we've posted a second batch of screenshots from 2.0

grr - stop teasing! Hurry up and release it so I can get my free upgrade ;)

[NickyR]

OK Thanks guys. It wasn't exacly a xiao mai bu but it clearly was not big enough! I'm off today to get my gadget. Excitement is building!

[NickyR]

All purchased, all installed, all working ... and I'm totally in love with it.

Thanks everyone for all your help. It was all a lot less trouble as a result!

Nx

[roddy]

Out of curiosity, where did you end up getting it and roughly how much did you end up paying?

[NickyR]

I ended up getting it at bainaohui - for reasons that are curious even to me given that I live very close to Zhongguancun...

I did not get a very good price. This was entirely down to me as I had no idea what I was doing (I;d never really seen a PDA before) - so all I did was check the price on the web, check the price they quoted me was a near approximation, check that the one they gave me was still in its cellophane wrapper, check there was a guarantee, check that they would set it up for me ... and then handed over my credit card. They must have thought it was their lucky day! None of this haggling over price for this laowai! So I paid too much - it was about 1950 for the Tungsten E2. I expect I'll feel very cross with myself for this when I inevitably run out of money in a couple of months. But as it was, I just went bright red and ran out of the store as fast as my little legs would carry me. Please don;t judge me! - I'll save my bartering for things I understand.

But for purposes of comparison, the website link you put up in an earlier post was about accurate - though I have no idea whether I was in that actual shop or not.... It all passed in a bit of a blur as all electronic devices look the same to me.

[ipsi()]

Well, it's cheaper than I would have to pay in New Zealand for a Tungsten E2, if that makes you feel any better

[DrZero]

Maybe this should be a new thread, but could anyone tell another electronics dummy what the relative merits would be of a Palm Tungsten E2 vs. a Treo, etc.? Price, functionality, compatibility with cool Chinese-learning software ...