Flashcard decks

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hi ya,

 

I now have flash card decks (or a studyarchive) for the readings on a week by week basis. I have a Mental Case study archive and a Anki package. They work slightly differently so I'll explain the differences in a minute.

 

The Similarities

 

1. There is a deck (case) per week (literally seven days of readings). There are 48 weeks.

2. The data is from Accordance 11 glosses for Greek and selection is made against :

 

LXX Rahlfs Tagged

Greek Septuagint (LXX1)

Kraft/Taylor/Wheeler Septuagint Morphology Database v. 4.7a
Copyright © 2012, Bernard A. Taylor and Dale M. Wheeler. All rights reserved.

Septuaginta, edited by Alfred Rahlfs
Editio altera by Robert Hanhart
©2006 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

See the file “LXX-Read me first” for more details.

Version 5.1

3. It includes words that occur infrequently or not at all in the GNT, 0-10 times, which occur in the LXX less than 50 times, and which are in the verse ranges for each week. This is what I use right now for my reading. This is because it happens to suit where my vocab level seems to be right now. It may not suit everyone. It will also not capture every word that one is unfamiliar with. Hopefully it will capture most. If people would like a substantially different deck like perhaps much higher occurrences in the GNT or even that in the LXX we can discuss the criteria and I can make such a set. I can do this reasonably easily now but I of course don't want to create a million decks.

 

4. Note also that the cards contain the data I like to see in flash cards which is very little. The Greek word - the lemma - on the front, the gloss on the back with the root information below that, if Accordance had any to provide. This deck does not contain inflected forms.

 

The Differences

 

Anki by default removes duplicates from the imported decks if they are of the same note type. I use a single note type per book of the bible. This means that I can see duplicates between Genesis decks and Psalms decks but within either I will not. This is due to the way Anki leads you through review. Earlier cards will be shown in review mode later at less and less frequent intervals. I have set up a subdeck of the Psalms deck for each week. If you wish to you can study the Psalms deck (the parent) and it will lead you through drawing new cards from the decks in order. As the new cards in each deck are exhausted it will move on to pulling new cards from the next deck while presenting review cards from the previously studied ones. Alternatively you can review each week manually selecting the Weekxx subdeck as appropriate. I am doing this now with Psalms to test it out, and the former with Genesis to compare. Do what you think suits.

 

The Anki deck is setup with the Cardo font. Anki is not as I'm not sure how to do it and it's likely not necessary to do. The primary reason Anki needs it is that you can then sync to your Android phone and render the accents. Tyndale House developed Cardo and it's free to use so I don't think there is any issue here. They mention no restrictions on its use on their website that I could find. If anyone finds out different let me know. This is why it's a good deal larger than the MC one.

 

Mental Case does not remove duplicates on importing a studyarchive. Thus it looks like it has more than twice the number of words - it does not. It has 2599 cards, while Anki has 1224. But in fact MC merely has the duplicates that Anki weeded out. I do not actually know which is better. I used Cram with duplicates like this for Hebrews and it was helpful to come across the same words again later in review. But then Anki automatically does review earlier cards so I'm not sure that it matters.

 

Both MC and Anki are very configurable it seems though I am much more familiar with Anki because I have only played with the MC demo sufficiently to prove I created the archive correctly.

 

My Plot For Using Them

 

Personally when reading Greek I like to read it not constantly look up words. My general plan is to crib vocab for a section and then read it trying to avoid using any of the whizzy bells and whistles (does Accordance whistle ?) of Accordance while doing so. I will often read over a passage couple times in this way before trying to consult the references. This method I owe to Rod Decker actually. This means keeping ahead with the vocab. My plan is to start cribbing the vocab in earnest up to a week before New Year and then try to keep up.

 

Here are links to them on Facebook.

 

The Mental Case study archive is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1494264187487145/1562656577314572/.

 

The Anki package is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1494264187487145/1560405687539661/.

 

Thx

D

[Anthony Pyles]

Daniel,

 

I can't access those links without logging into my Facebook account (which I killed some months ago). Would you be kind enough to provide other links for the rest of us?

 

Thanks for your work on this!

 

Tony

[Λύχνις Δαν]

I totally get you on the FB thing - I pretty much don't use it but am going to use this as an experiment. Let me see if I can put them on DB and post a link here. I cannot post them here because the file type check on the forum kicks them out.

 

EDIT : Try these and let me know if you can see them :

 

Anki: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rotv14juf4pbo6a/PsalmsInAYearLE50GNTLE10.apkg?dl=0

 

Mental Case: https://www.dropbox.com/s/h5mjrj2di5imvop/PsalmsInAYearLE50GNTLE10.studyarch?dl=0

 

Thx

D

Edited December 11, 2014 by Daniel Semler

[Ken Simpson]

Hi Daniel, if you zip the files, the forum will accept them.

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Yeah I could have done that but then it's a hassle to rename (they don't actually have to be real zip files - they appear to just have to look like it) or unzip them, not difficult I grant but ...

The funny thing is that the Mental Case .studyarchive is a zip file.

 

Anyhow, if people have issues with the DB links I'll do that.

 

Thx
D

[Ken Simpson]

Yeah, but every BB I know uses file extensions to type files.

[Λύχνις Δαν]

True enough.

[Abram K-J]

Daniel--a true work of art, and utility. Thank you!

 

If anyone needs to know how to increase font size on Mental Case, post here and I'll reply. It is not at all intuitive, but I got a great answer from their support.

[Anthony Pyles]

Thanks, Daniel!

[Ken Simpson]

Would it be of assistance to have these on the Exchange?

[Λύχνις Δαν]

@Tony : welcome

 

@Ken : Sure, if you like. Do you want me to submit them or can you pull them from my DB links ? Do the file extensions matter to the Exchange ? If you need a brief description then maybe I should submit them tonight when I can type something up.

 

Thx

D

[Ken Simpson]

I have the files. A description would be grand when you have a moment, then I will post.

 

Thanks Daniel

 

Just email me - you know the address.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Ken Simpson

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Oh ok - sure - we can do it that way.

 

Thx

D

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hi All,

 

These are now on the exchange under documents http://www.accordancefiles1.com/exchange/documents.htm. Many thanx to Ken.

 

tx

D

[Ken Simpson]

Well, what can I say!

[Michael Dearinger]

Daniel--a true work of art, and utility. Thank you!

 

If anyone needs to know how to increase font size on Mental Case, post here and I'll reply. It is not at all intuitive, but I got a great answer from their support.

Daniel, I'd like to know how to increase the font size on Mental Case. Thank you.

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hey Michael,

 

First, I don't know MC very well at all.

Secondly, I worked out one way on the MC demo rig I have. It may not be the only or the best way but it seemed to work in a quick test. Apologies if you know bits of this and it reads laboriously.

 

In the Note Browser in the Stacks on the left hand pane click on Psalms.

Then double click on the first card in the list. This will take you to the Note Editor.

You should see a front and back template of the card.

On the lower left of each card is a gear icon. Click on this on the left hand card. It will flip around.

On this flipside you will see a Text Format section with a Font Size pull down. Select the size you want and click done.

Do the same on the right card.

This sets the format for just this one card.

To apply the settings to all cards in the deck go to the Notes menu -> Apply Note Settings to Other Notes in Stack.

On the top left of the Note Editor click Done.

 

At this point you should have what you need.

 

thx

D

[Abram K-J]

Daniel--that's great. I didn't realize you could do it that way.

 

Here's the response I got from MC's Support a while back, FWIW:

 

 

The easiest thing is to change it on the Mac. Please go into editing mode and go into a single card. As you've probably already found out you can use the little gear (settings) icon to open the 'back' of the card, and set the font size here. After you've setup a cards and it's facets with the size you like you can use the Stamp icon (on the bottom of the screen) to create a template out of it. This template can be applied to this whole stack and other stacks in the future if you like.

 

There's no way to change fonts from iOS.

[Abram K-J]

Actually, the way Daniel mentions will work for a Stack (i.e., a week), but I'm not sure it will work for a Case (i.e., all of the stacks/weeks for the whole of Greek Psalms). You could try it, but the template method ought to work to apply the font changes to everything in Greek Psalms at once.

 

Daniel--thanks again for these decks. Now I just have to use them!

[Abram K-J]

Note, too, that with the method I mention, I don't believe you can apply the template to all the stacks in the case via the pane on the left (the equivalent in Accordance would be the contents browser). You have to selected the Greek Psalms case, then go in to MC's "Notes Browser" where you can see all the cards for the whole thing, then do command-A to select all, and from there Notes/Apply Template.

 

Hope this helps! Not as easy to set up as one might like, but definitely doable, and theoretically only has to be done once.

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Actually, the way Daniel mentions will work for a Stack (i.e., a week), but I'm not sure it will work for a Case (i.e., all of the stacks/weeks for the whole of Greek Psalms). You could try it, but the template method ought to work to apply the font changes to everything in Greek Psalms at once.

 

Daniel--thanks again for these decks. Now I just have to use them!

 

 

Hey Abram,

 

In my quick test of this it looked to me like if you started with the top level Psalms stack it applied to all below it. But I must confess to not being dead clear of the distinction between a case and a stack.

Anyhow, looks like there are a couple of options to try.

 

Thx

D