Chinese Cards

Instructions Instructions

Card Creation
1. Add Categories
  - Every card must belong to a category.
  - Create categories by typing a category name in the text field above the "New Category" button. Then click the button.
  - Try this. You can always come back to this page by clicking the "Instructions" just below the categories.
2. Add English/Pinyin/Chinese
  - Type English/Pinyin/Chinese directly into their respective text areas and then press "Save Card"
  - To view and type Chinese characters you will need to have the appropriate fonts and some sort of input method installed. In Windows, installing the East Asian Languages support should provide you with all of this.
  - Use the "Definition Search" in the "Tools" section by typing in a query into the adjacent text field and pressing the button. You can then click on the results to add them to your card.
3. Adding Images
  - There are two different ways of viewing a set of images to add to your card.
    1. Search for images on the internet by typing a query into the "Search:" text field and clicking "Image Search."
    2. Upload images from your computer by clicking "Browse", choosing a file, and then clicking "Upload Image"
  - Once the images appear in the "Tools" section (using either method) you may then click on them to place them on the card. A small thumbnail of the image should appear at the bottom of the card.
  - To remove an image from a card click on the small thumbnail (it should highlight itself with a red border when your mouse moves over it.)
Playing Flash-cards
1. Test yourself on a category by choosing Flash-cards from the Menu.
2. Cards that contain images will show a single image beneath the card. If there is more than one image on the card, it will be chosen randomly.
3. Click on the English/Pinyin/Chinese text areas to reveal them in any order you prefer.
4. Optionally filter the cards that you have marked correct from the deck.
Playing Word-war
1. Load a set of image-based flashcards by choosing "Word War" from the menu.
2. All cards must have at least one image and valid pinyin.
3. Java 1.5 or greater must be installed to use the speech recognition.

Chinese cards is being developed by the Spoken Language Systems group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). In addition to providing an image-based flash card storage system, we hope to expand upon our speech recognition features. This will only occur if we get enough interest from the Chinese Language Learning community, so tell your friends! For questions / suggestions / comments / concerns / bugs / etc. Please email chinesecards@csail.mit.edu.