The traditional two-sided flashcard is an imperfect tool for learning Chinese. The obvious way of using flashcards to learn vocabulary–the one I hear most people using–is to have the English meaning of a Chinese word on one side and both the pinyin/pronunciation and characters of the word on the other. If you switch which side of the card you use to trigger recall, the card can teach you two ways to recall a given word:
1. You can recall pronunciation and characters from English meaning.
2. You can recall English meaning from a combination of pronunciation and characters.
The problem with this system is that the pronunciation and characters of a given word don’t appear together in most real life contexts. A better flashcard demands that you engage in three forms of recall:
1. You can recall pronunciation and characters from English meaning.
2. You can recall English meaning and characters from pronunciation.
3. You can recall pronunciation and English meaning from characters.
One option for improving memorization would be to make three individual flashcards for every vocabulary word that each prompt for a different type of recall. But personally, I find it easier to just make “three-sided” flashcards in Anki. This is my method. Note that I assume you already understand basic Anki features, like creating and studying cards.
1. You need the Anki app on your phone or desktop (I only have Android, but I assume this method also works on iPhone). I don’t think this is possible on AnkiWeb. If you use the sync feature, sync your cards first, because this process will make it necessary to fully reupload your card database after you’re done. The system will warn you about this.
2. Go to “Manage note types.” Look under Tools on Desktop or the menu shown by three dots in the right-hand corner on Android.
3. Click Add or +. In the menu that opens up, click Add: Basic. Name your new card something like “Three-Sided.”
4. Still under the “Manage note types” menu, select your newly created “Three-Sided.” On Android, that’s sufficient. On Desktop, click the “Fields” button. You should be looking at a list of the fields of the new note type.
5. Add a field by pressing the Add or + button. Name the fields something like “Character,” “Pinyin,” and “Meaning.” I will continue assuming you used those names in that order.
6. Save if necessary, then leave the menu and go back to the Anki home page. Press the Add or + button to add a new card. Set the type to “Three-Sided.” There should be three spaces for inputs, labeled “Character,” “Pinyin,” and “Meaning.”
7. Press the “Cards” button. This allows you to determine how the fields appear on your cards.The Front Template should say {{Character}}. Leave as is. Replace the Back Template with this:
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{{FrontSide}}
<hr id=answer>
{{Pinyin}}, {{Meaning}}
8. Go to Options/Add Card Type on Desktop or Menu/Add on Android. Add 2 more card types.
9. Switch to the template for Card 2. Edit the Front Template and Back Template so that Pinyin is on the front and Character and Meaning are on the back. Edit Card 3 so that Meaning is on the front and Pinyin and Character are on the back.
10. Save and leave the Card Types Menu. Set the deck, fill in the fields, and add the card for a vocab word. If you go to Browse/Card Browser you should see three cards for that vocab, each one prompting with one of the three fields (Character, Pinyin, or Meaning) so that you have to recall the other two. Now, as long as you set the card type to “Three-Sided,” you can easily make three cards for every vocab you add.
11. Optionally, increase the review interval for decks with three-sided cards. With three cards per vocab instead of two, you don’t need to review each individual card as often.
**Tl;dr, Create a new card type with three fields on Anki. Then link three card templates to the card type, with each template prompting with a different field.**
Feel free to mix-and-match with this card type. For instance, you could replace pinyin with an audio recording; or keep both pinyin and audio and try creating Four-sided cards.
I really like this type of card, so I hope it’s helpful for some of you as well!
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This is a standard use case of Anki, and definitely works on desktop/Ankiweb.
When I was studying for HSK, my note had English, pinyin, hanzi, and audio, and my cards were En<->pinyin, hanzi<->pinyin, hanzi->en, and audio->En. It’s a lot of cards, but I like the rule of each card should only test one thing, not more.
I mean it depends on your goals and your flashcards. This can be useful for certain applications, particularly classes or exams. But for most people native language to target language is not going to be very useful because many target language words can have the same or very similar native language definitions, so it’s super frustrating to try to guess the correct synonym/close synonym. At least that’s been my experience. But there are definitely use cases for it.
Can you please share/export your word collection? 😅