Message-Id: <199602041700.TAA20654@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Sun, 4 Feb 1996 10:49:05 -0500
Reply-To: "Robert J. Chassell" <bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: "Robert J. Chassell" <bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject:      another FlashCard program available
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2813
Lines: 75

Richard Kennaway recently made his flashcard program available
(ftp://ftp.sys.uea.ac.uk/pub/kennaway/misc/FlashCards.sit.Hqx).
FlashCards 1.8 is a vocabulary-learning program for the Macintosh.

People who cannot run a Mac program may be interested in Lars Huttar's
flashcard.el for GNU Emacs.  It runs on DOS and Unix systems.

Features:

  - optional multiple-choice mode.
  - recording the user's performance, and using past performance
    to focus current drill on what user needs most.
  - mixing and drilling on multiple files simultaneously.
  - source files can contain words, phrases or sentences, not just
    single words.
  - various options, including:
      o optional fields other than the question and answer fields.
      o optional sequence shuffling
      o customizable number of times guessed right for cards to be
        drilled.
      o customizable minimum no. of days since last time got right
        for cards to be drilled.
      o customizable record and field delimiters (for example, I
        prefer to specify three spaces as the field delimiter instead
        of the default TAB used in many databases).

Here is a sample lojban-english source file, with different length fields:

    !% Fields: lojban   english

    drudi   roof
    bitmu (bim bi'u)   wall
    blaci   x1 is a quantity of/is made of/contains glass of comp x2
    canko (ca'o)   x1 is a window/portal/opening [portal] in x2

(I prefer the gismo-rafsi/full-English-definition format to the
gismu/keyword format; but you can do as you wish.  The gismu and cmavo
lists are designed so you readily can generate lists automatically in
whatever format you like.)

Here is a example of a multiple-choice display for the source file
shown above, before you give your answer:

    Card #2 of 4    Overall: 0 r 0 w (0%)    This card: 1 r 0 w (100%)

    Question (lojban): bitmu (bim bi'u)
            1. x1 is a window/portal/opening [portal] in x2
            2. x1 is a quantity of/is made of/contains glass of comp x2
            3. wall
            4. roof

    Answer (english):

    Press       the number of the correct answer,
            g   to give up, or
            k   to skip this question.


My experience with this program:
    - It works fine. :-)
    - I do much better on the multiple choice than in `real life'.  :-0
    - I don't keep up my efforts... :-(

Here is the LCD Archive Entry:

ftp://archive.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/

;;; LCD Archive Entry:
;;; flashcard.el|Lars Huttar|huttar@cs.oberlin.edu
;;; |Selective drilling on flashcards, tailored to your past performance
;;; |1994/06/08 09:50:13|0.95|

    Robert J. Chassell               bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu
    25 Rattlesnake Mountain Road     bob@rattlesnake.com
    Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA   (413) 298-4725