How to make Chinese Flashcards with Anki (With Pin Yin, Characters and Sound)

To begin studying Chinese words I researched which flashcard systems were most effective. Online Chinese classes or pre-made flashcard decks are useful, but I wanted to choose which words I learned. I needed a system that was completely customizable. I discovered an app called Anki and decided it fit my needs. 

Below is how I set up my Anki flashcards. It took me quite some time to look at the Anki online manual and to reference other Chinese language learning websites before I knew how to make the flashcards according to my specifications. Anki is a very flexible program. You put as much or as little information as you need on each "card." 

Below is how I set up the flashcard system. I hope this tutorial is useful for other Chinese language learners with step-by-step directions. For reference, I also included links at the very bottom of this post of all the articles I used for this tutorial. 

What is Anki? 
Anki is a free open source digital flashcard system. It is available as a desktop app and on mobile. Anki is more useful than paper flashcards for two reasons: 

First, Anki has an algorithm of spaced repetition that increases the time in which the user reviews previously learned materials. 

Second, Anki has a plug-in called "Text to Speech" that can be used to hear the proper pronunciation of a word. Chinese is a tonal language so it is extremely useful to review words and to hear the correct pronunciation of it. 

Step 1 - Download and Install Anki for Desktop 
Download Anki at this link here. 

Step 1A - Download Anki for Mobile Device 
If you wish to use Anki on your mobile device then download it from your respective app store. The Anki mobile app is free for your desktop and Android devices, but will cost you $24.99 on the Apple App Store.  

Download Anki for Android at the link here. 
Download Anki for iOS at the link here. 

Step 2 - Create Custom Flashcards by making a new type of "Card" 
In Anki you can create different types of "cards" that will make a deck. I wanted to create a Chinese character "cards" that had custom fields in them. 

Open Anki. 
1) Click "Add" in the dialog box. 
2) In the Add Dialog Box next to "Type" click "Basic". 
3) In the Choose Note Type Dialog Box click "Manage". 
3) In the Note Type Box highlight "Basic" and click "Add". 
4) In the "Add Note Type Box" have "Add: Basic" highlighted and click OK. 
5) Rename this Note Type as "Chinese Characters." 

Step 3 - Create Custom Flashcard by Creating New "Fields" on Each Card 
Now that you have created a type of "card" for Chinese characters you can put in your own customized fields in them. For me, I wanted to put in 6 pieces of information for each character. You may not want to put as many. Customize according to your needs. 

1) In the Add Dialog Box click "Fields". 
2) In the Fields for Chinese Characters Dialog Box click "Add" 
3) In the Add dialog box add the field name. Pick what field names work for you. I decided to use: 
English Word 
Chinese Character - Simplified 
Chinese Character - Traditional
Pinyin 
Radicals 
Mnemonic
Make some flashcards to start. After that then you can add in the Awesome TTS plugin for Chinese pronunciation playback. 

Step 4 - Install "AwesomeTTS" (Text-to-Speech) Plugin for Chinese Word Playback
Anki has all sorts of plugins that can download to enhance your flashcards. "Awesome TTS" is very useful because it can read back to you the Chinese characters on the cards. 

1) In the Anki main menu click "Tools" 
2) Select "Add-ons" and "Browse & Install" 
3) In the Install Add-Ons dialog box type in 301952613  
Install Awesome TTS into Anki

Step 5 - Add Awesome TTS Sound to your Flashcards 
After installing Awesome TTS you are now ready to add sound to your flashcards. 

1) In the Anki main menu click "Browse" 
2) Choose the "Awesome TTS" menu and click "Add Audio to Selected" 
3) Choose the flashcard deck you want to add sound 
4) Highlight the cards that need audio added 

  
Step 6 - Configure Awesome TTS 
Configure Awesome TTS so it knows what field on your flashcard to playback to you. 

1) Under Generate using choose "Google Translate" 
2) Under Voice choose "Chinese, Mandarin" 
3) Source field - This is the field you want Awesome TTS to read (for me it was my field called "Chinese Character - Simplified") Destination - You probably want it to read from the same destination so I choose the same field. 
4) Click Generate and now Awesome TTS will add audio to your cards! 

Step 7 - Practice Using your Flashcards 
Now you are ready to start using your flashcards. Below is what one of my flashcards looks like on my phone. The play button is what I press when I want to hear the word played back to me. My notes on radicals and the mnemonic may sound a little bit goofy, but so far it seems to help with retention of words. I got the idea for the mnemonic from an article I read on Mighty Mandarin. See link below to it. Happy practicing! 

Sources for this Blog Post 
Anki Flashcard online manual "Anki 2.0 User Manual" 
FluentU "Best Apps to Learn Mandarin Chinese" 
Wikipedia "Anki (software)" 
Wikipedia "Spaced Repetition" 
Mighty Mandarin "Learn Chinese Characters Fast" This is an article that convinced me that adding a mnemonic may help in learning characters. 
Street-Smart Language Learning "How to Automatically Add Foreign-Language Audio to Anki" 

Welcome to the start of my Chinese learning journey!

Why learn Chinese 8 words at a time?

First, I considered how many words I could realistically learn at one time. My goal is to expand my Chinese vocabulary. Each set of words had to be big enough to feel like progress, but not so large that it would take too much time to learn. So I used an entirely unscientific "Goldilocks" method of reasoning:1 to 5 words is too few, 10 too much, but 8 words is just right.

Second, in Chinese culture, the number 8 is regarded as a lucky number. The number 8 is pronounced "bā", which sounds similar to the word fortune, which is pronounced "fā". This is a Chinese themed blog so I thought naming it with a lucky number would boost my chances of learning. Again, note, the relatively arbitrary nature of this rationale! In my Chinese mind, I believe that auspicious numbers will lead to success!

So who am I? And, if I'm Chinese, why do I need to learn Chinese? Don't I know it already?

I'm MK. I am a 30-something Chinese-American living in the Midwest. My history with learning Chinese is a long and fragmented one. To my Chinese parents' credit, they gave me all the resources to learn. In elementary school, I had a tutor and in middle school, I attended a once a week Chinese language school. I picked up some of the fundamentals but was not a good student (read: lazy!) It was not until high school when I was given the option to take Chinese as part of my regular school curriculum that I began to make progress (read: finally motivated to be an A-sian and not a B-sian for the sake of college admission!) . At the end of high school, I was probably at an HSK2 level, but when I went to college the Chinese courses conflicted with my major requirements, and I stopped taking classes.

Fast-forward 15 years, 6 jobs, 3 cities and 1 master's degree later...

A lot of life happened, but I still want to learn Chinese. It's on my bucket-list to be multilingual. I used to think it was too late for me, but I've decided I don't care.

There's no time like the present! Having studied Chinese before I am not starting from zero. I know some of the fundamentals such as pinyin, tones, writing stroke order etc, but it has been so many years that I have forgotten many things. I'll start by increasing my vocabulary and logging it here.

Why make a blog?

I like to multitask. I'm setting out to learn Chinese, but this blogs also functions as a creative outlet for my inner writer and marketer. I enjoy writing and I consider this blog an opportunity to further hone my skills. I also recently acquired my Master of Science in Integrated Marketing Communication. I learned a lot in graduate school, but need a project to test out tactics. Up until now, I've only read about optimizing website design and SEO, but this blog will be my chance to experiment.

Lastly, and most importantly...

I am not a language expert. I am an ordinary late-in-life language learner that wants to jump feet-first back into Chinese. I'll be accumulating vocab lists, notes, and resources into a central repository with the hope that others like me find value in it. 

So there you have it! The origin "story" of 8 Chinese Words. This is the beginning of my journey, and I hope you come along for it!