Many of my posts cover topics relevant to students of Asian languages. Today is no exception If you’re studying an Asian language (or any other language that appears ‘exotic’ from a Western point of view), you will be familiar with the concept of ‘flashcards‘. And you will also know that, at some point during your studies, you just reach a point where it’s not feasible anymore to write flashcards by hand. There will be a moment when you realize that you need to make more progress in much shorter time if you want to succeed. And flashcards have certain drawbacks: once you start using the Leitner system (see Wikipedia for a short rundown) it’s difficult finding cards when you suddenly realize that you need to change or correct something. Also, flashcards have only a frontside and a backside, which is not enough if you need to memorize: a) a foreign character, b) the stroke order of that certain character, c) its various pronunciations and finally d) its translation. Things may get even more complicated depending on the language you’re studying. So having multiple card sides available (preferably adjustable by yourself) is a big plus, which is an advantage software-based systems can offer.

But software has disadvantages as well. You won’t be writing a character down physically when you create a card, you will only type it into a virtual computer programme — and as your daily quota of words increases, it might take a while until you finally get to practise those words. I often found myself merely ‘processing information’ rather than learning a language. Software is also rather inflexible. You could take your flashcards anywhere and practice. Heck, you could practice while waiting for the water to boil or at the bus stop. But who wants to boot up a computer every time he wants to run a little piece of software to learn Chinese? Which is why interoperability with mobile devices is important. Unfortunately, except of a few commercial web applications (which require internet access — not good), there are very few options for your cellphone. In fact, there is only one that I know of, called MobVoc — a very young vocabulary trainer that can be installed on Java-enabled mobile phones. Apple also offers a vocabulary trainer for the iPhone which can open files created with iFlash, an excellent Mac OS X vocabulary trainer. I will try to give a short overview over the most popular programmes below.

jMemorize (Windows, Linux, Mac, others/Open Source)

Version tested: 1.3.0
Homepage: http://jmemorize.org/
Opens .jml (jMemorize’s own format), .csv, .tsv
Saves: .jml, .pdf, .rtf, .csv

I will start with jMemorize as it’s the vocabulary trainer I’ve been using since starting university. It’s neither the best application, nor the most versatile. In fact, the longer I used it, its shortages have become more and more apparent to me, but first things first jMemorize is an open source project that has been running for a couple of years already. It’s a Java-based vocabulary trainer, so it will work on a whole lot of different systems, including Windows 9x systems. It is a relatively lightweight application, yet when loading a larger file, the programme seems to slow down a little. The presentation is simple, and the whole application just ‘feels right’. The interface is very intuitive and the graphis showing you your ’stacks’ of flashcards are a nice idea.

The downsides: flashcards only have two card sides, just like the paper ones you use in real life. So its not very suited for studying Asian languages. Unfortunately, this was something I only realized later after spending hours typing my vocabulary into the programme So I admit I’m a little reluctant to switch now. The file format, although XML, looks confusing and a little unstructured. That makes it im- and exporting vocabulary from or to other programmes difficult. Last but not least: depite a very active online community and many feature requests, the programme hasn’t received an update for over a year now. But however you put it, it’s still the application I started studying Chinese with and it has proved very stable for the last three years, longer than most programmes survive on my hard disk, so it deserves its place here

Anki (Windows, Linux, Mac/Open Source)

Version tested: 0.9.9.8.5
Homepage: http://ichi2.net/anki/
Opens: .anki, .mem, .wcu, .xml
Saves: .anki, .txt

This is an application I’ve heard of before from students of Japanese. But my attention was drawn to Anki again through a friend who now uses it to study Chinese. Seems the developers widened the focus of the application a bit The most intriguing feature of Anki is certainly its online capabilities. On the Anki website there is a feature called Anki Online, which is nothing else than a browser-based version of Anki, which allows you to practise wherever you have internet access. Technically, this should also work on more advanced mobile devices, but I didn’t check up on that. You can even synchronize your card decks with the Anki webserver automatically. Certainly a nice gimmick.

The programme interface is very lean and intuitively designed. It’s easy to use, right from that start. Precreated card decks are available on startup through an integrated download manager. It’s clear that Anki is one of the older projects around, which have received a lot of work already. Everything, including keyboard shortcuts, is very well thought through. But even Anki can’t deny where it’s coming from. You will definitely notice that it was originally designed to study Japanese, but that shouldn’t keep you from using it for other purposes. One last issue I have with Anki is that, despite the fact that you can create three-sided cards (character – pronunciation – translation), it looks like it’s not possible to check for the pronunciation separately (or at least I wasn’t able to find the corresponding function), which is a little disappointing. If Anki had that feature, it would be nearly perfect.

Update (2009-10-17): I was told that you can indeel tell Anki to check for pronunciation separately. You just need to create a deck of cards with three sides and then configure Anki the right way. Must have slipped past me when I checked the programme, but it’s good to know it’s there Great feature.

Mnemosyne (Windows, Linux, Mac/Open Source)

Version tested: 1.2.1
Homepage: http://mnemosyne-proj.org/
Opens: .mem, .wcu, various .txt and .xml formats
Saves: .mem, .wcu, .txt, .xml

One application I’ve found on Wikipedia before writing up this post is Mnemosyne. Mnemosyne was the fastest programme I tested. It’s graphical user interface is extremely clean and the whole application feels very very light. The simplicity comes at a price, though. Mnemosyne is not as customizable as the other programmes covered. As much as I liked the coding, though, I have to admit that, similarly to Anki, I don’t quite understand why the author goes through the hassle of creating a system that allows the user to enter three-sided cards, but not to check for the pronunciation separately when memorizing new words. Also, I found the system of storing cards a little confusing. As soon as you enter a new vocabulary, the programme seems to create two cards — e.g. if you study German, Mnemosyne would for each vocabulary create one card English->German and another card German->English, instead of just flipping the card around when needed. I could imagine that this causes a lot of redundancy. Still, I think that this programme would be best suited for casual users, who don’t need a lot of options, but something that just works. Precreated card decks are available on the Mnemosyne homepage.

Parley (Linux/Open Source)

Version tested: 0.9.1
Homepage: http://edu.kde.org/parley/
Opens: .kvtml, .wql, .xml.qz, .pau.gz, .voc, .xdxf, .csv
Saves: .kvtml, .csv

The next programme on the list is ‘Parley’, an application included in Linux KDE’s Education package. Parley is one of the most mature vocabulary trainers I’ve seen by far. Not only does it open a whole bunch of different formats, it also has a very thoughtful designed interface and plenty of settings. You can add as many sides or languages to a card deck as you want. And the programme even handels verb conjugations, in case that exists in the language of your choice I admit I haven’t used the programme much, which is due to the fact that it’s only available for Linux so far — which is also the programme’s biggest disadvantage. HOWEVER, the KDE developers are working on a port of their desktop environent to Windows, called ‘KDE on Windows’, which can be found and downloaded at http://windows.kde.org/. They have made tremendous progress already, but it’s still a work -in-progress and not recommended for everyday use. If you really want to  give it a try, head over to their website, download the installer and choose to install the KDE education package. After the installation, you will find Parley in Start Menu -> KDE – > Education. The Windows version of Parley still shows a few error messages every now and then and it is a little slow. I’ve especially had trouble when running the app in a normal user account instead of my administrator account.

The main reason why you will want to keep an eye on this project, though, is MobVoc. MobVoc, which is available on http://mobvoc.sourceforge.net/, is a small vocabulary trainer for Java-enabled mobile phones. It’s extremely light, fast and responsive and runs on even the most basic Java -equipped phones. The project was only started in 2008 and so far MobVoc basically just flips through the words, but doesn’t save which words you actually learned. So as a vocabulary trainer, MobVoc doesn’t live up to its purpose, but it’s an ongoing project. And it’s free Precreated card decks for Parley and MobVoc are available on the Parley homepage.

Update (2009-11-15): After using Parley for a few days on Ubuntu Karmic Koala, I found that it doesn’t fully live up to what it promises. In spite of all its useful features, the programme in general feels a little buggy and many features just don’t work right. I’m not sure if this is related to my system, but I for my part will stick with jMemorize for now. Having a basic but stable vocabulary trainer counts more than dozens of fancy features.

iFlash (Mac/Freeware)

Homepage: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/home_learning/iflash.html
Opens: .cards, .csv
Saves: .cards, iPhone and iPod projectors

I didn’t really get to test this programme as I’ve never owned a Mac myself., but many of my friends use or used it, and I’ve seen it in action for the whole first semester at Jiaotong University thanks to Kai So I figured I should include it for the sake of completeness. Similarly to Parley, the application looks very mature already. Other than the applications above, the interface looks much leaner, but it doesn’t lack any of the essential features. Very Apple Especially the controls seem very intuitive. You flip through all the card sides with your cursor keys, then use the space key to mark a card as learned. iFlash vocabulary files can also be run on iPhones and other mobile devices, however the corresponding software doesn’t allow the user to mark things as learned, just like MobVoc above, which is particularly disappointing since the rest of the programme looks very well designed. I am sure there will be a fix for this some time, though. So if you’re a Mac user, I wouldn’t know why you would need to change

Other programmes

• Pauker (Windows, Linux, Mac, others/Open Source): http://pauker.sourceforge.net/
  A programme that doesn’t look very up to date anymore, but seems to have influenced later vocabulary trainers a lot. Many programmes presented here allowed for Pauker files to be imported.
• FlashBack (Windows, Linux/Open Source): http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Education/FlashBack-3490.shtml
• BeLearn (Windows/Payware): http://www.beblock.de/produkte/vokabeltrainer/
  First app I used when studying European languages at school. Very nice and intuitive interface. Checks user input. Drawback: bad customer service, see this post.

Conclusions

Choosing the winner is tough. If I had to generalize, I would give the award to Parley and iFlash. Both for their flexibility and their useful features. But the perfect programme for you really depends on your personal requirements and what you’re trying to do. Many people have been happy with Anki or jMemorize just as much The biggest problem is the lack of intercompatibility between different applications. There is no central file format that all applications implement. Even the formatting standards for plaintext .txt or .csv files differ from one programme to another. So choosing an application which can open and save different formats is crucial before you start typing hundreds of thousands of words into your computer.

It’s also a great pity that there are not more mobile Java applications around. MobVoc looks very promising, but hasn’t been updated for quite a while already. And again, interoperability is a problem here. Another feature I would like to see in more programmes is support for multiple card sides. If you want to learn an Asian language or if you just want to compare languages (e.g. memorize English and French words at the same time), multiple card sides just come in handy. This is an advantage that physical flashcards can’t provide and where computers can be a real help.

Last but not least: Remember this post is a work-in-progress. If you come across software that looks interesting or addresses one of the shortcomings mentioned here, please feel free to add a comment and share your findings with other readers. Although I’ve been mainly covering free/open source software, comments presenting commercial software are also very welcome.

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When you live in East Asia for a longer period of time, you notice that a large percentage of people here do not use established chat networks like Windows Live (MSN) or ICQ to communicate. It is commonly known that the usage share of the larger chat networks differs between countries — e.g. AOL Messenger (AIM) has a larger user base in the United States, whereas ICQ is more common in Europe, with MSN catching up fast. People in Vietnam prefer Yahoo, and generally speaking MSN is not a bad choice when you’re Asia.

Things work somewhat differently in China and Korea. In China, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the most common chat programme is QQ. And just that makes it one of the largest chat networks worldwide Now what QQ is for the Chinese, NateOn is for Koreans. NateOn itself doesn’t differ very much from MSN, in fact it used to be compatible to MSN until some time ago, or so I heard But has evolved into a separate independent network and has even overtaken MSN in South Korea in terms of user numbers. Its main advantage is its connection to Cyworld 싸이월드, South Korea’s larget social network community.

There are websites explaining to foreigners how to set up a QQ account, but setting up a NateOn account is somewhat more complicated and not encouraged by Nate itself. The main obstacle here is that new users will usually need a Resident Registration Number 주민등록번호 to register, a number similar to American social security numbers, only available to South Korean citizens. Foreigners living in Korea will also receive a similar number with their “alien registration card”, which can be used in a similar way. But for people outside of Korea there is little chance to get around this barrier. Usage of other people’s numbers or number fraud had been common when submission of a valid registration number became mandatory for signing up for online services in Korea, but is nearly impossible these days. Thankfully, there is another, more indirect way to get a NateOn account.

Getting a NateOn Account

The trick is to register a Korean Cyworld account. Cyworld and Nate are basically the same network, so Cyworld accounts can be used with NateOn as well. The difference between registering with Nate and registering with Cyworld is that the latter offers another way of registering without the need for a resident registration number: You will have to scan your passport and e-mail it to Cyworld’s help desk. Getting a Korean friend to help you with this is recommended.

1. Head over to the Korean Cyworld website at http://cyworld.nate.com/ and look for a box in the upper left corner. This is where you will log on to Cyworld when you completed registration. Click the orange link in the lower left corner of the box that reads 회원가입 (’sign up’).
2. You will be taken to a Flash menu where you can choose from three different options: ‘regular user’ in the upper left corner, ‘company/organization’ on the right, and – you guessed it – ‘foreigner’ 외국인가입 in the lower left corner. Follow the registration for foreigners, click 외국인가입. At the next page, ask your Korean friend to translate the disclaimers for you and make sure you understand what they say. Afterwards check all three checkboxes and proceed by clicking the orange button which reads 동의 (‘agree’).
3. At the next page you will be asked for a proof of identity. There are three different options, of which you will have to choose the last one 외국인등록번호(없음) (‘no alien registration number’). Proceed by clicking the orange button again. You will be asked for your email address. Click the right radio button 네이트 이메일 없음 (‘no Nate E-mail address’) and type in your E-mail address. If your domain is not among the ones listed, choose the last option 직접입력 (‘direct input’) and enter your address directly, like this. Now click the grey button to send a confirmation E-mail to your account. A popup window will open. Check your mailbox, but keep all browser windows open. Cyworld’s confirmation E-mail will contain an eight-digit number which you will have to enter in the popup which just came up after you pressed the grey button.
   Now you have to fill out the registration form. This is quite straightforward:

   비밀번호 입력 Enter password
   비밀번호 확인 Confirm password
   이름 Full name
   성별 Gender: 남자 male, 여자 female
   생년월일 Date of birth: 양력 Gregorian calendar, 음력 Lunar calendar
   유선전화 Landline phone number*
   휴대폰 번호 Mobile phone number*
   국적 Nationality
   메일 수신여부 Receive Cyworld E-mails: 받음 Yes/ 받지않음 No
   서류파일 Attach file

   Please note that Korean phone numbers are required here (*). Your Korean friend should be able to help you with this. It’s very unlikely Cyworld is going to call you anyway. Fill out the form and submit it by pressing the orange button again. I’m not sure what the “Attach file” link does. It’s optional anyway.

4. Your first log-in attempt will take you to a page telling you to scan your passport and email it to cycop1@nate.com. Whether you scan it or take a photo is up to you. But make sure the image files are of reasonable file size. Files over 3MB are likely to be rejected by the mail server. Also, asking your Korean friend to write a few lines is recommended — one should always try to show his courtesy
   Now all you can do is wait. It can take between a few hours up to a few days and not all applications will be accepted.
5. After you received your confirmation E-mail from Cyworld, your first login attempt will take you to a page asking you change your password, if the password you have chosen is considered too weak. Enter your old pass in the first box, the new one in the second and in the third. Now you’re all set to launch NateOn Download the English NateOn client and log in using the E-mail address you just used to log on to Cyworld and your Cyworld password. It seems that NateOn needs write access to its programme directory in /Program Files/, so make sure you run it in Administrator mode or set the permissions accordingly.

Setting up Pidgin-NateOn

The next step would be to find a way to incorporate NateOn into a multi-protocol messenger, in order to reduce the number of programmes you have running at the same time. Fortunately, this can be done with Pidgin 피진. After completing the registration above, completing the following steps should be a piece of cake

A little background information first: Pidgin is a free, open-source, multi-platform chat client that allows you to connect to different chat networks through only one single client. Its more famous Mac counterpart is called ‘Adium‘. Where you had to use several clients to communicate on MSN, ICQ, QQ etc. before, Pidgin unifies them all. MSN, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, QQ are among the protocols Pidgin supports. You can extend Pidgin’s functionality by installing plugins — e.g. plugins to read your old MSN or Trillian logs, or to make it connect to even more networks, like Facebook Chat or Skype. As you probably guessed by now, there is a plugin for NateOn as well called Pidgin-NateOn. Since not many people are aware of this, I will provide a small rundown on the steps required to set up Pidgin with NateOn support here.

I assume you have Pidgin installed already. So head over to Pidgin-NateOn’s website and download the plugin (click the small .rar icon at the bottom of the post). The file is really small and should download instantly. Unpack the WinRAR archive to Pidgin’s installation folder (by default “C:\Program Files\Pidgin\”). Choose “Yes” when Windows asks if it should overwrite the existing folders. Afterwards, run Pidgin and click “Accounts” –> “Manage Accounts”. The Account Manager will come up. Click “Add” in the lower left corner to add a new account. Choose “NateOn” from the protocol list and enter your login details — that is, enter the E-mail address you use to log on to Cyworld as Username and your password in the corresponding box below. You may choose to have Pidgin remember your password or choose a buddy icon, but that’s up to you.

After that is done, click “Add” and close the Account Manager. Make sure Pidgin can connect on port 5004 — that’s typically the port used by NateOn. Now wait for the connection to be established. A new group will be created in Pidgin’s buddy list that contains all your NateOn contacts. Before you start chatting, make sure you set up Pidgin correctly to enable Unicode support. Enjoy chatting!

Links:
> Pidgin-NateOn (plugin website) (> Internet Archive mirror)
> Pidgin-Nateon Plugin Download (Protocol svn 137 Plug-in Win32 binary): click small archive icon at bottom of post
> Launchpad Pidgin-NateOn Plugin Project
> Pidgin-NateOn Installation Tutorial (Korean)
> Pidgin Homepage
> Pidgin-NateOn Adium Plugin status (Korean)
> NateOn Homepage
> NateOn Messenger (Korean) Download
> NateOn Messenger (English) Download
> NateOn Messenger Mac Version (Korean) Download
> Google Translate: Korean -> English

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I always find it interesting how differently Koreans work with computers when compared with us in the West. While the majority of people in Europe and North America use Microsoft Office, this situation is somewhat different in Korea. Here, many people use Hangul 한글 (HWP), a word processor created by the Korean software company Haansoft 한글과컴퓨터, which lately also produced a whole suite of office applications, including spreadsheet and presentation software, Haansoft Office 오피스 2007.

While not very popular or even potentially interesting to Western people, Hangul still holds a substantial market share in Korea. And I would certainly think that the programm has features that students of Korean might find appealing. It comes with a large number of Korean fonts, for one thing, some of which in Windows-readable .ttf format, others in Hangul’s own .hft format. It contains support for now obsolte Hangul and Guyeol characters, and has tools to convert text from Hangul to Hanja, and to work with Japanese and Chinese text. Also included is a comprehensive Korean-English-Korean dictionary. For those trying to install Hangul (or the Hangul Viewer, see below) and find they are having trouble displaying Korean text, have a look at Microsoft’s Applocale Utility and this older post on the Hanyu Da Cidian 汉语大词典.

Links:
> Wiki.en: Hangul (word processor)
> Haansoft Viewer 2007 – HaansoftViewer2007.exe 한글과컴퓨터 오피스 뷰어 (Hangul Viewer 2007) Download: Free application to open and view documents saved in Hangul’s .hwp format (click floppy disk on the right of download page).
> Hangul 96 file converter for Word 97 – ara96cnv.exe: Converter for Microsoft Word 97 to read Hangul 96 .hwp files.
> OpenOffice.org: Free alternative to Microsoft Office that can open, edit and save .hwp files created with Hangul versions up to Hangul 97.

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One of the less well-known attractions in Shanghai is the site of the Provisional Government of Korea 大韩民国临时政, the Korean exile government during the Japanese occupation of Korea. This is where prominent political figures such as Syngman Rhee 이승만 or Kim Gu 김구 have been working and fighting for recognition during 1919 and 1940, when they were forced to move on to Chongqing 重庆.

The museum is rather small and not the type of place that will knock you off your feet, but it’s well preserved and a definitive stopover for almost all Korean tourist groups visiting Shanghai. There is pretty much no English throughout the entire exhibition and the Chinese labelling is mostly Traditional Chinese, so be prepared.

You wouldn’t expect to find a place like this in the area of what is today Xintiandi 新天地 and they try to keep it all a little on the discreet side, so keep your eyes open and look for house numbers Also, remember to bring your passport or some sort of ID, as you will have to register before entering.

Contact Information

Original Site Of The Temporary Government of Korea
大韩民国临时政府旧址管理处 (대한민국임시정부유적지관리처)

Admission 票价: 15 Yuan 每人15元
Internet 网站: http://dh.luwan.sh.cn/
Tel. 联系电话: 021-53829554 or 021-53829057

Opening hours 开放时间:

• Monday 周一 12:30-17:00
• Tuesday-Sunday 周二至周日 9:00-17:00

Address 地址: 上海卢湾区马当路306弄4号 (상하이 노만구 마당로 304호)
Closest intersection: Madang Rd. 马当路 & Fuxing Rd. 复兴路
Public Transport 公共交通: Metro Linie 1 地铁一号线 to Huangpi Rd. South 黄陂南路
> Map 地图

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