Chinese Flash Cards Kit

These are really wonderful aids and do all that a flashcard can be asked to do. Also, they DO provide a very detailed stroke order- I am puzzled why so many reviews comment that there is no stroke order. Perhaps there was an earlier edition? I will take and upload a photo, so other customers can see for themselves. I find them superior to "Chinese Character Flashcards 888" and wish I would have saved my money as I purchased both sets. There is another review comparing them that is incorrect. These flashcards are more sturdy, have a more detailed stroke order (they break down every single stroke while the 888 set often groups them), provide a sample sentence as well as additional words using the character (888 only has a few sample words), and provide the traditional character along with the simplified when applicable (888 does too, but it's very small). They are superior in every way to the 888 set- I haven't even looked at the other set since the Tuttle set arrived. In fact, this is the first Amazon review I've written, and I do so to correct the misinformation I based my purchasing decision upon. Another useful feature is that the first 500 flashcards in the set coincide exactly with the two Tuttle Language Library volumes "250 Essential Chinese Characters". So, if you're working your way through these books, these flashcards are the ideal study aid. (The labeling numbers coincide exactly...if learning character number 115 in the book, you can refer to flashcard 115.) I am very happy with the cards and encourage their use as part of a well-rounded study program. It has been commented that individual characters have no real "meaning", so these cards have limited use. I disagree. Individual characters do have meaning and are used to represent a particular sound and tone. You must learn what sound goes with which character since characters are written individually with equal spacing- when reading Chinese, you need to pronounce each sound as you go along since characters are not grouped together to signal they are being used to build a particular word. Thus, each character needs to be learned individually since it can be used with many different characters to build different words. For example, "pengyou", meaning "friend", is written with two characters: one representing the sound "peng" (which means friend) and one representing "you" (which also means friend). But the character for "you" can also be combined with the character for "yi" which result in "youyi", meaning "friendship". As far as the samples sentences go, they may potentially be confusing since they do not provide an exact word-for-word translation, but for someone with moderate experience (I've been studying Mandarin for 3 months now) they are very easy to understand. An exact translation wouldn't be very comprehensible anyway. I rarely find myself confused over which word represents which meaning, and if uncertain, it's easy enough to look up a troublesome word in the dictionary. It's all part of the learning process.

I studied Chinese in college and even as a native speaker I struggled. HARD. Never learnt to read and write but could speak it, however shabbily, but still I could speak Chinese. My biggest struggle was learning HOW to study Chinese and memorize characters, stroke order, pin ying, etc after years of learning language through the use of 26 alphabet letters. This might seem like a non issue to some but trust me when I say it was very difficult at first figuring out how to start from scratch with basically a foreign system of reading and writing and finding a method that was efficient, useful, and more importantly EFFECTIVE. Which is why I wish I had these back in the day. I had looked for something like this but most were just either not as good or less well laid out in terms of providing the information I needed in a form out that was helpful. And forget about me making my own. Believe me I tried. Whether it was my own terrible hand writing throwing me off, it was like the blind leading the blind, or the tedious and time consuming act of making print outs, typed up definitions, etc. then pasting them onto notecards, there just wasn't a convenient method. Then years after my Chinese classes I found these! Wish I had them back then but oh well. What I like about these is that the cards are not too flimsy, small but legible, easy to carry, and most important all the info you need is meticulously well thought out and organized into a very helpful method for quick learning. These cards have the pinying, stroke order directions, traditional AND simplified characters, definitions and even cooler common uses and other characters they are usually paired with. Plus they have the radicals associated with them. For me that was HUGE because somehow I missed the lesson on radicals and went a long time without knowing I had such helpful hints at my disposal. I really can't say enough glowing things about these handy dandy little helpers. Sure in this digital age there may be and probably is some app or program you could use and save some trees while doing so. But selfishly I gotta say there is something about notecards that always helps make learning easier and with these, as corny as it sounds, it makes it fun too! A must have for anyone learning Chinese or even struggling with learning Chinese! JIAAAAAAAAAAAAAYO!

I bought these flashcards after my classes worked through the First 100 and the Second 100 Characters books. (see my review of the books) I use the books and these cards primarily to help with writing. Like the books, the cards show the characters in large type and the stroke order, more clearly than in my textbook. They don't show the stroke direction nor do they use the "tien" to help with stroke placement and proportion, but the books provided sufficient experience in analyzing a character for those aspects. Indeed, the books have transformed my stick-figure-like characters into nice looking characters. I like the cards because I can now arrange them in the order of occurrence in my textbook as well as "retiring" the ones learned and arranging similar characters together for further study. The examples of compound words are also helpful (also in the books) as my vocabulary expands. The cards are kind of slippery, however, and when first out of the box, some were hard to separate. Unless I have the ones I'm using in the ring, I tend to drop them and make a mess. (This is the reason I went with a book at first. If they had more books like them I'd get them.) Having how the characters are written clearly demonstrated is so important especially as the characters become more complex with more advanced study.

These flashcards just arrived today, and I am impressed. I've been studying Mandarin for a year now, and ready to take the HSK exam. I bought these cards to ensure I had all the vocabulary memorized. I originally made my own at the start of my studies, but these cards will help bring my studies to a new level. With the character stoke order, example sentence, and commonly used word sections, I can expand my knowledge of a single character quickly (instead of looking up each character online/on pleco). Plus, they are numbered, so it's easy to track which characters I'll need extra practice in case I need to break up the deck. Finally, the set comes with a little pamphlet that organizes the characters alphabetically and by radicals, making it easy to find the card in the deck. I will be carrying these flashcards around with me to pass the time on my commutes, and perhaps even practice with a few friends as well. I would give this product a 5/5, but there are a few areas of improvement. First, only two of the cards were not fully punched. To resolve this I just pushed the ring through the punch area and had no problem fitting the cards on the ring. Second, the set only came with one ring. If you were to put all of the cards on 1 ring, it wouldn't lay flat on any surface (i.e. too many cards on one ring). I think the set could improve if it came with two rings. Thus, 4/5. I would recommend these cards to anyone serious about mastering the HSK exams! Hope this review helped!

This review is for Chinese Flash Cards Kit Volume 1, 2, and 3 (the newer edition of Tuttle Chinese Flash Cards) These are really great vocabulary cards. I studied Mandarin intensely as a second language (in US and in China) for about 3 years as far back as ten years ago. I previously studied all characters from the 3 volumes but haven't used them much since. I may be using Chinese for an upcoming job, so I bought all 3 newer edition flash card volumes as a review. So far they seem completely accurate. By following the suggested program, my language skills are returning quickly and efficiently. The vocabulary words on each character card are especially useful to reinforce their meaning. I would strongly recommend these as a supplement to other Chinese textbooks that can teach grammar and practice usage. As others have noted, the characters chosen line up 1-for-1 with the HSK exams. Volume 1 is HSK1, Volume 2 is HSK2, Volume 3 includes HSK3 and HSK4 characters. One downside I realized after buying, is that the newer card editions doesn't match up with the older flashcard editions. I would like to buy Volume 4 of the new edition also but it isn't released yet (if ever?). I realized that the start of older edition Volume 4 doesn't line up with the end of the newer edition Volume 3 characters. Therefore if buying 1-3 of newer edition, and volume 4 of older edition, some characters will be missing. For the most common 1,070 characters, these are a great set, but I'm not sure how best to continue past these characters once mastered. I pose questions to the author: 1) When will Volume 4 of the newer edition be released? 2) If we buy Volume 3 of the newer edition, and Volume 4 of the older edition, could you send us the characters missing in between? Overall great product, I look forward to checking out your other study resources. Thanks!

This product would have gotten 5 stars except for the poor readability. Blue ink is a poor choice because it is not dark enough for reading the smaller hanzi. The hanzi on the back of the card is even smaller The flash card material look sturdy enough and the information on the cards is good. Overall, the product is a good value. This product would have been even better if the flash cards were printed in black ink instead of blue ink.

These flash cards are incredibly useful for anyone interested in learning Mandarin Chinese; however, I'd particularly recommend this product to individuals looking for supplementary material for a course that they are taking or additional language support. These cards are most effective for learning to recognize and identify characters and tones used in Chinese. If you're interested in learning how to write the characters, I'd recommend instead purchasing a book published by the same company that makes these flash cards (Tuttle) called "Learning Chinese Characters." There are 5 predominate reasons that I particularly love this product: 1. The cards are the size of playing cards. This makes them portable and easy to take with you wherever you go. 2. There is a hole punch in every card that allows you to slide a small ring (included) around the cards. Super easy to flip through all of the cards without loosing any between couch cushions. 3. Each card is laminated. You don't have to worry about bends or tears as you would with homemade paper notecards. 4. The cards teach individual characters, but also include other words the same character in a different meaning. This will help you understand how Chinese is essentially a set of building blocks to develop new words. 5. Cards are numbered and ordered methodically so that you will learn how to develop new words and sentences as you gradually progress without needing to backtrack. My only complaint about this product is that the English and the Pinyin translations are right next to each other on the back. When first learning Chinese, most beginners will go through the process of learning how to understand and observe English to Pinyin (plus tones), Pinyin to characters, Characters to English. In a perfect world I would have preferred that the Pinyin and English were separated on the back of the card in different corners or something so that I could quiz myself on that information. Overall I am incredibly pleased with my purchase and consider it a bargain that I could benefit so much from a language product that didn't cost me $300+.

I've been using a book to learn these which is quite helpful. The flash cards are just the thing to help with memorization. Some of the Chinese characters are, for some reason, very easy to remember after the first introduction. I'm not sure why that is, but I've had no trouble with recalling about half of them that I've been introduced to. The other half...well, that's a different story. I have to keep studying them and trying to give myself a tool to recall their meaning. What the cards do is allow me to separate out those words that I have trouble with from those I don't, so that I'm not repeating the stuff I already have down cold and do not need to review. It saves a lot of time and effort and unnecessary repetition to have these. I tried making my own flash cards, but these come with some great disks that help you to get the pronunciations right the first time. Chinese is a tonal language and sounds sing-song-y for a good reason: It is! The Pinyin (Romanized spellings) have accent marks over many of the vowels -- they are there to tell you how to pronounce the sound and there are at least five different ways to do that. My comprehensive dictionary has several pages for the spelling (without accents) "xie"--so, if you do not use the correct tonal pattern, you could be saying just the opposite of what you mean to say. Xie(4) xie means "thanks"....can you imagine how easy it would be to mess that up? The flash cards are numbered and there is a printed cross-reference so that you can find one easily enough if you want to change the order (also an easy means to make notation of such actions), and there are recorded pronunciations which are worth the cost of the box alone. The cards also give examples of the word in usage--very helpful, indeed. I would call these a "must have" if you are just starting out learning Mandarin. The first set are the more commonly used words and I would guess that they comprise about 50% of the Chinese you will need to know.