Simplified Characters Flashcards (3500)

[边斌同学]

In order to learn how to write by hand, last year I spent a couple of months making flashcards from this list of characters: http://hanyu.iciba.com/zt/3500.html . As I wasn't able to find such a list by searching, I thought I'd put it up online for anyone who is interested. The cards are organized as described below:

One side has the character, the other side has the pinyin pronunciation, as well as a few example words that use the character, for example:

和

————————————

hé：__平

hè：附__

huó：__面

huò：__药

The are 3509 characters in total, because when I started making them I figured I might as well throw in all of the characters for the Heavenly Trunks and Earthly Branches, 9 of which were not included in the first 3500. They are split into groups of 250 characters each, with three larger "review" groups encompassing the first 1500, 2500, and full 3500 characters.

I found using this list of characters I was able to go from being able to write only a hundred or so characters to being able to use all 3500 in about 4 months or so using the following method:

1. Get a smart phone

2. Download "Tiny Classroom" (flashcard program that allows writing the answer) and upload the cards**

3. Use "Tiny Classroom" in writing mode to practice the characters group by group (I just did this in my free time -- on the bus, in restaurants, etc.)

4. Review at the 1500, 2500, and 3500 benchmarks to make sure I didn't forget cards learned earlier

5. Begin learning 五笔型 input method

6. Practice writing by hand/五笔型 for a half an hour or so a day to increase writing fluidity and speed

** Unfortunately, the cards will be backwards if you want to practice writing on "Tiny Classroom", and there is no option in that program to flip cards. I ended up downloading "AnyMemo", a different flashcard program that let me import the cards, flip them, and then export them to be used in "Tiny Classroom".

Currently I'm working on the 6th step. While I can write any of the 3500 characters given time, sometimes it takes several seconds before I can remember them. I'm hoping that by continuing to practice writing every day it will become more instinctive and my speed will increase.

Anyway, hope this is helpful for those of you trying to learn characters!

EDIT: Just uploaded a new version of the cards that should work for Windows users. Thanks to cababunga for helping get them in the right format!

3500hanzi.zip

[paike]

This sounds really great边斌同学. I will take a look at it.

I would like to put this onto my Ipad somehow. I will look into what I should do. Probably have to download some new app, maybe "Anymemo" has an app. I know Anki does, but that seems pretty expensive.

But, Bravo, good job. This sounds like just what I'm looking for. ESPECIALLY if you already did a bunch of examples for each characters, thats just icing on the cake!

[马盖云]

边斌同学, Is this in some sort of wierd encoding for the Tiny Classroom app? Within the zip file, the csv files all have gibberish names, and when I open the csv files (in Excel for example), the contents are also unreadable. My computer is pretty good with Chinese fonts, etc. so it's odd that I am not seeing proper characters. So I wonder if this is a special file format, etc.

thanks for your efforts, and any idea you may have about this!

[边斌同学]

Odd, I just checked the .csv files and I can't open them on my computer either. However, when I put them on my phone Tiny Classroom and AnyMemo can open them fine. The cards were originally created on a Mac using the JMemorize program. I attached an example using the .rtf export format, see if you can open that one ok.

As for the names being messed up, I have no clue. They look fine on my computer when I re-downloaded and opened the zip file, should be “0001到0250.csv" “0251到0500.csv" and so on.

test.rtf

[Gymnosopher]

Funnily enough this sounds like what I had planned to do in the long run - have a writing characters flashcard deck that gives you conjugates to trigger what the character is, though interesting that you chose not to put a definition.

[paike]

My computer won't open up the zip. It says every file is an error. Creates a new folder, but is empty. Any ideas?

[边斌同学]

Can you try the .rtf file I attached on my second post? If .rtf format works I will convert the rest and upload it that way.

Gymnosopher: I originally planned to have definitions, but some of the characters have so many various and complicated meanings (look at the dictionary entry for 和 for example: http://hanyu.iciba.com/hanzi/2156.shtml ) that I just decided to keep it simple and use conjugates as cues. A benefit of this is that while learning the characters if there were ones I couldn't remember the meaning of I would go out of my way to look it up. Over time the definitions began to stick and now I not only can write these 3500 characters, but know the meaning of the ~7000 conjugates used on the cards as well.

[马盖云]

The test.rtf file looks great, thanks. Seeing it now, the formatting (the lines and boxes) must have been using control characters that made the file unreadable in excel or a text editor. Probably added by the flashcard app. I will try the app next. Thanks again!!!

[边斌同学]

马盖云, do you have a way to convert the .rtf file back into flashcards? That is, can most flashcard apps input an .rtf file (JMemorize can't, unfortunately)? If not I should probably try and find a format that people can actually use before uploading

[边斌同学]

I found on my computer that if I set the coding to "Unicode-8" I could open the files. I just resaved a couple in "GB 18030" which seems to be the default (on my computer).

As for the names being messed up, it may be due to mixing Chinese and English font in the filename. I renamed one of the CSV files, so see if that works. If so I can resave the rest and upload them again.

test2.zip

[David Wong]

Is Tiny Classroom or AnyMemo available for the iPhone. I am not able to find them in the App Store.

[边斌同学]

So did that new formatted version I put up work?

David, it looks like they are both only available for Android systems. I'm not sure if there is a similar flashcard program that lets you write on the screen for Iphone. If not you could always use a normal flip flashcard program, but I found being able to write on the screen made it much more enjoyable!