The vocabulary tutor combines electronic
flashcards(D-
-
3)
with patient but insistent coaching to provide a rapid and effective method of
vocabulary building.
To begin, you open a Smart Characters
vocabulary lesson(D-
-
8)
and repeat the following:
Keeping track of the times you take to identify each word, Smart
Characters selects and drills you on the words you find most difficult.
You decide if your answers are correct, then Smart Characters calculates a
score for each word based on your accuracy and response time.
At the end, you save your vocabulary lesson to disk, preserving your
updated scores so that you can resume your session at a later time.
A
typical vocabulary session lasts 15 minutes to one hour, with several hundred
trials. We are happy to report that this method of vocabulary learning appears
to be the most effective of any we have tried, when used in combination with
another form of instruction. See the discussions
About the Vocabulary Lessons (Chinese)(2C-
19),
(Japanese)(2J-
12),
A Typical Lesson (C)(2C-
23),
(J)(2J-
17),
and
Don't Forget to Read (C)(2C-
24),
(J)(2J-
18).
Smart Characters emulates a flashcard with three sides: phrase,
pronunciation, and meaning. The phrase is always an Asian
language word or phrase, the pronunciation is written in the native
alphabet, and the meaning is in English (or other Roman language).
The tutor is equally effective in drilling both directions to and from a target
language. The forward drill consists of a phrase question followed by
its pronunciation and meaning. The reverse drill starts with a meaning
question, followed by the phrase and the pronunciation. You can separate these
two answers by adding a second question stage. See the
Added Stage(3-
42)
command.
The educational goal is to have instant vocabulary recall. However, Smart
Characters measures only how quickly you can press a key, so besides a quick
mind, a quick hand is essential. If you play video games, you most likely have
already developed the reflexes necessary to "play" Smart Characters Vocabulary.
If not, your physical reaction time could well be longer than your vocabulary
recall times, resulting in inaccurate scoring, since a high time score means
slow or poor recall. See
Practicing the Keyboard (Chinese)(2C-
21,
)
(Japanese)(2J-
15)
and
Develop the Rhythm C(2C-
22),
J(2J-
16).
Because Smart Characters concentrates on words with time scores higher than the
expert time, if you do not answer within the expert time, you will only
rarely be asked new words. Instead, you will be asked over and over just the
same words which, for some reason, you still can't answer quickly. If you get
tired of this, select
Setup Tutor(3-
40),
increase the expert time, and you will be asked a wider selection of words.
Use your PC to Master Japanese and Chinese