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We have developed a Flashcard Reader in Macromedia's Flash to help you study off-line. An unfortunate pun, but unavoidable. It's a free download.
When you use the Ting Chinese English Dictionary you can add words to your free account and study them with quizzes, flashcards, and printable review sheets in the Review Planner. Now you can also study off-line using the Ting Flashcard Reader. It will give you full control over the words you want to study. You can add and delete words and phrases from your lists, make custom lists, make reviews for tests. Teachers can make sets of vocabulary words for chapters or units and distribute small .xml files via e-mail to their students. The software is free, but it is has a copyright. That means that it cannot be redistributed, put on any CD for distribution, or put on any server for download.
You must have Flash installed on your system to use the Flashcard Reader in your browser.
If you have the plug-in already, you can download the Flashcard Reader from Ting - Chinese English Study Center right here:
Create a new directory called TingFlashCards and copy the .zip file there.
The file is zipped. If you don't know how to unzip a file, try double clicking it after you download it. You may already have a program to do it. If that doesn't work, download Winzip at http://www.winzip.com/ and install it. Then drag FlashcardReader.zip onto Winzip and it will open.
If the Ting Flashcard Reader doesn't seem useful to you, simply delete the directory, there is no installation on your machine.
Trying It Out:
Download Sound File Links:
Adobe Flash Security Screen:
A Note on Fonts:
Making Your Own Lists:
Changing Your File:
Download Flash
Trying It Out:
Inside the .zip file, there are four files:
1) these instructions
2) TingSample.xml and
3) TingFlashcardReader.swf and
4) TingFlashCardReader.html.
To use the player, double click TingFlashCardReader.html. It will open in your browser. We prefer Firefox in our Lab, but so far any browser seems to work. On the main menu there is a place for you to enter the name of a file. Type "TingSample.xml" into the box, but without the quotation marks. Choose your study method from the list on the bottom left.
-- Full Card will show you all of the information about a word or phrase so you can study for the first time. You will also be able to click on links for sound files if you are connected to the Internet. Information on the Full Card will be in this order:a. Chinese Character
b. Chinese Pinyin
c. English
d. English Alternate (sometimes)
e. Part of Speech
f. Chinese Measure Word (sometimes)
g. Measure Word Pinyin (sometimes)
h. Usage Comments for Chinese (sometimes)
i. Usage Comments for English (sometimes)
j. Sound Links (Chinese and English names)
-- Characters will show you only the Chinese characters, but will allow you to move your mouse over Pinyin and English to get instant feedback as you study. Chinese speakers studying from the Chinese should try to write the English words as well as saying the English. English speakers should say the Chinese as well as the English translation.
-- Pinyin will show you numbered Pinyin, and again you will be able to move your mouse over Character and English to find the correct answer. English speakers should try to write the Chinese character when they study the pinyin.
-- English will, of course, only show you English. When studying from the English, you should do passes through the cards while saying the Chinese equivalent and if you are studying characters, you should write the characters for each of the words. Chinese speakers should say the English word and say the Chinese translation of the word. If it is a verb, Chinese speakers should try to say the verb tenses -- I see, I saw, I have seen, I had seen, I will have seen... Many of the irregular verbs are shown with different forms on the Full Card.
Good study habits mean that you study in both directions:
English to Chinese and Chinese to English -- English speakers should also study Pinyin to Character and Character to Pinyin.
On the right side of the Menu, you can choose the color of the background. I hope there is a color you like!
Now you can press the Open File button and begin to study.
This will take you to the Flashcards. You will see some new buttons:
Shuffle You should shuffle your cards often. It is not good to learn a list of words in a foreign language in a particular order. On the website, Ting, new words and old words are easily randomly sampled together. In the Ting Flashcard Reader, your lists will be fixed to a certain set. In a moment, I'll tell you how to get lists and how to modify them.
Home will take you to the beginning so you can change colors, the word list, or the study method. You may also change the study method by clicking Full Card, then clicking Character, Pinyin, or English.
Arrows will take you back and forth through the cards. Each new card will show your chosen study method until you change it. If you move your mouse over English, Pinyin, or Character they will show briefly so you can refresh your memory.
? will take you to a version of this help file.
When connected to the Internet:
Several of the buttons will work to take you to Ting Chineses English Study Center, to the Review Planner, and will allow you to download links to the sound files.
Download Sound File Links: If you are connected to the Internet, you can download sound file links for words or sentences. This does not download the sound files themselves, that would take forever. Only the sound files you click on after the links appear are downloaded. They will remain in cache even after you go off-line and you can continue to play them. Links that were not clicked while on-line, will not work off-line. When you close the Ting Flashcard Reader the links are lost but your study list remains on your machine.
If you have Adobe Macromedia Flash 8 or newer, new security settings have been implemented. The first time you download sound file links, the Security window will open and when you click on SETTINGS it will take you to the Adobe Flash page where you will be asked to authorize the download. You will see a security screen like this:
After you click on SETTINGS you will be taken to the Global Security Settings Panel. It looks confusing, but it is quite simple. Where it says "Edit locations" open the drop down list and choose "Add location."
When the new screen opens, you will see that the location of the Flashcard Reader is printed in the lower box.
Simply highlight it and copy it.... and then paste it into the upper box. Click on confirm and close the browser window. Then close the Ting Flashcard Reader browser window and the reopen it. You will be set to go.
Ting Flashcard Reader is setup to use MS Song (mssong.ttf) for the Chinese Characters. It is a UNICODE font. If you don't have it installed, the default font in Flash will be used. It isn't as pretty.
If you have Windows 98 you can download a Chinese Simplified package from Microsoft.
If you are using WindowsXP the font is included on your WindowsXP installation disk. Here's how to install it:
* Click on Start-> Control Panel -> Regional Languages and Options.
* Click on the Languages tab.
* Check Install files for East Asian languages.
* Click on Apply.
* If prompted, insert the Windows XP installation CD and follow remaining instructions from the computer.
If the Ting Flashcard Reader doesn't seem useful to you, simply delete the directory, there is no installation on your machine. If you like it, you will want to download your own lists. To do this you need to:
1) Open your browser and use your account on Ting Chinese English Study Center. Accounts are free. You have to have an account so you can choose your own set of words to study. We store your preferences on Ting, not on your machine.
2) Go to the Review Planner after you have added words to your account. Let's say you add the vocabulary from Chapter 7 from your book today. Then choose "Today's Cards" as your time sample and all those words will be downloaded. Keep your lists short. It can be very frustrating and inefficient to study more than 15 new words at one time. If they are review words, a list of 40 may be attempted, but you might be tempting boredom. You may also choose the past month or download all the cards in your account.
When you press one of the bottons, a save dialog box will open. The title of the file will be TINGVOCAB"today's date".xml. If you download two lists on the same day, your browser will add something to distinguish them, or you can change the name by adding a letter or perhaps the chapter number of your book. The file will have an ".xml" ending. This is very important. Save your file in the same directory as the Ting Flashcard Reader.3) Copy the name of the file into the first page of Ting Flashcard Reader where it says TingSample.xml and you are ready to study your own words!
You may want to combine files, take out words, add difficult words from other files, or do many other things that I haven't thought of. Here's how:
1) Open your .xml file in WordPad or Notepad.
2) To exclude words:
a) find the word you want to exclude,
b) highlight from <card> to </card> and press the delete key on your computer,
or the control key plus the X key (control-X). Presto, it's gone!
c) Either save your file, or use "save as" and choose a new name.
3) To add words from another file:
a) open two copies of WordPad or Notepad. From one instance of WordPad or Notepad, copy the words you want to
choose by highlighting from <card> to </card>.
You may highlight more than one word or entry, just make sure to
begin with <card> and end with </card>
b) paste your entry into the second instance of WordPad or Notepad, making sure that you
paste after a </card> entry.
You can paste at the end or the beginning of the list, it
doesn't matter. The cards will be randomized when you view them.
c) save your new list using Save As and a new name. Remember to use the xml extension.
Hope you find many useful ways to use this!
You can get Macromedia's Flash at:
English Version
Return to Index
Flash programming by Victor Cavendish Goes
Design and graphics by Marilyn Shea.
Last update: March 2007 (c) Marilyn Shea, 2006, 2007
