Chinese Flashcards YellowBridge Chinese Flashcards User's Guide
Introduction
The YellowBridge Flashcards are designed to help students of the Chinese language memorize words and characters as efficiently as possible.
Free features include:
- Easy to use. No need to download any software. Extra large size prompt of Chinese characters.
- Rather than generic one-size-fits-all flashcards, ours are divided into many “decks“ corresponding to each textbook chapter or word list as appropriate.
- Study mode allows for easy review of the answers.
- Word recognition mode will prompt you with a Chinese character while the answer side will show all the appropriate details.
- You can study or review several word lists at a time, thus making it easier to review vocabulary from previous lessons.
- Support for both traditional and simplified Chinese characters.
- Words are linked to the YellowBridge Chinese English Dictionary for quick access to the full dictionary entry for the word (including list of related words, sound-alike words, example sentences, etc.) as well as detailed information about the individual characters (such as etymological data, stroke order, etc.)
- Words are pronounced for you simply by clicking on the speech icon.
- Session summary statistics help you measure your progress.
Premium features are available to YellowBridge subscribers. These features include:
- Word recall mode will prompt you using a combination of pinyin, English, and/or Chinese speech to test your ability to recall the Chinese characters. Recall requires a higher level of proficiency than word recognition and it is a must have for students who truly want to master writing, not just reading characters.
- Intuitive keyboard shortcuts allow you to flip through the flashcards faster using just the arrow keys or by swiping with your finger if on a mobile device.
Usage
The YellowBridge Flashcards work just like the real world cardboard flashcards. Each card contains a prompt side and an answer side. In a typical usage, you would cycle through the cards one at a time, viewing the prompt and attempting to pronounce the word. If unsure of your answer, you would then flip the card to the answer side.
Options Page
- Word Lists.
- Word list. Each word list generally corresponds to a lesson or other suitable collection of words. You may select several word lists in any one session. Hold the Ctrl key down and then click the mouse to select additional lists. You can select as many lists as you like However, the number of words from the combined lists must not exceed 200. The number of words is determined from all of the words in the word lists selected.
- Show (Hide) Supplementary Lists. (Subscribers only) Get an expanded list of flashcards that includes words from the supplemental vocabulary, if one exist for the list under consideration.
- Mode. Each flashcard session will start in one of the following modes:
- Study. Lets you cycle through all of the answers so that you can memorize them.
- Practice recognition. Prompts you with the Chinese character, word, or phrase. As each prompt is presented, you will have the opportunity to view the answer, continue to the next card, or return to the previous one.
- Practice recall. Prompts you with some combination of Pinyin, English translation, or Speech (spoken Chinese word) depending on which of these options were checked. As each prompt is presented, you will have the opportunity to view the answer, continue to the next card, or return to the previous card.
- Primary Chinese Characters.
- Traditional or Simplified. Lets you select which of these scripts should be used as the primary set. The non-primary set is the alternate character set. The prompt side of the flashcards will only use the primary characters.
- Show alternate characters. Let's you specify whether the alternate characters should be displayed in the answers.
- Options (for Study, Recognition, and Recall modes).
- Shuffle cards. Shuffles card before starting the session. Uncheck this box to view the word in the word list natural sequence (which is, typically, the book sequence if the list came from a book or in pinyin order otherwise).
- Auto pronounce answers. (Subscribers only) Automatically pronounce words when viewing the answer side.
Prompt Side
The prompt side is presented in the Practice recognition or Practice recall modes. In the Practice recognition mode, the prompt will be a Chinese word while in the Practice Recall mode, the prompt will be Pinyin, the English translation, or a spoken Chinese word, depending on the options selected.
The Reshuffle button allows you randomize the order of the remaining cards from without starting a new session.
Answer Side
The answer side contains the following fields:
- Primary Characters. This field shows the traditional or
simplified characters, depending on which was identified as the primary characters in the options form.
Subscribers can get direct access to a variety of detailed information from the
YellowBridge Chinese-English Dictionary depending on where you
click. (If you plan to consult the dictionary often within the flashcard session, we recommend minimizing rather
than closing the dictionary popup window for faster results.)
- Clicking on the eyeglass icon
will
invoke the YellowBridge dictionary for the current word.
- Clicking on the eyeglass icon
- Alternate Characters. This field shows the alternate character set if so requested in the Options page. However, no character will be displayed if the traditional and the simplified characters are identical.
- Pinyin.Pinyin characters.This text or the speech icon located to its right can be clicked to hear the word pronounced.
- English Translation. Self-explanatory.
- My answer was. Click Right to indicate that you had a high degree of certainty about your correct answer; click Unsure if you had low degree of certainty; click Wrong if your answer was correct or you didn't know the answer.
- Reference.Unique identifier for the source word list.
will
invoke the YellowBridge dictionary for the current word.Summary Page
The Summary Page contains the following fields:
- Session Length. Indicates the elapsed time since the beginning of the session.
- Performance Table. Indicates the number and percentage of answers given correctly in one try, two tries, and three or more tries. Check boxes next to the last two categories allow you to identify whether you'd like to save them as leftovers (which can then be used in a subsequent session).
Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts makes it possible for you to use the flashcards without using the mouse. Just press the keys shown in the table below. No additional Alt or Ctrl key combination is needed. (Keyboard shortcuts only work when the browser window containing the flashcards is the currently active window. If it is not the currently active window, simply click anywhere within the flashcard browser window to activate it.)
| Command | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Previous | ← |
| Flip | ↓ or ↑ |
| Next | → |
| Wrong | ← |
| Unsure | ↓ or ↑ |
| Right | → |
Tip for Remembering the Arrow Keys. The arrow key assignment takes advantage of the fact that most keyboards arrange the arrow keys such that the left arrow, down(up) arrow, and right arrow are arranged in a left to right sequence. This sequence matches the Previous/Flip/Next as well as the Wrong/Unsure/Right flashcard button sequence.
The arrow key shortcut are particularly useful in conjunction with the Recall mode because it makes it possible to easily flip the cards using one hand while using the other to write out the Chinese characters on a piece of paper.