Flashcards for Language Learners

Vocabulary is a scheduling problem

Nothing in studying suits spaced repetition better than vocabulary: thousands of small, discrete pairings that decay predictably and are restored by short, well-timed reviews. The friction has always been typing the cards. FlashCard AIbuilds them from the article, page or word list you're working through.

Build decks from what you're actually reading

Pre-made frequency lists have a place, but the words that stick are the ones you met in something you cared about — a news article, a chapter, a set of song lyrics, the page of a textbook you're working through. Paste the text or photograph the page, generate the deck, and the vocabulary arrives already attached to a context you remember.

Card rules that matter more in languages than anywhere else

One meaning per card. A word with four senses is four cards, or one card for the sense you actually met. Cramming all four onto one card guarantees you mark it wrong forever.
Keep a sentence on the card. Isolated word pairs recall poorly and transfer worse. A short example sentence carries the grammar and the register with it.
Decide the direction deliberately. Recognition for reading vocabulary, both directions for anything you want to say out loud. Doubling every card doubles your review load, so choose.
Include the awkward bits.Gender, plural form, tone, the irregular past — whatever your language punishes you for guessing. If it's not on the card you will learn the word wrong and fix it later, painfully.

Pace it

One generation a day — the free tier's 1 — is roughly one article or one textbook page, which is roughly the right amount of new vocabulary for a day. The limit is doing you a favour: the way people fail at vocabulary decks is a giant import followed by a review queue they never face again.

What cards won't do

They won't teach you to hear the language at speed, and they won't give you the grammar you need to produce a sentence under pressure. Reviews make words available; conversation, listening and reading make them usable. If cards are your whole study plan you'll end up with a large passive vocabulary and no fluency — a well-documented and quite frustrating place to be.

The right ratio is boring: fifteen minutes of reviews, an hour of contact with real language.

Reviewing anywhere

Vocabulary review is the ideal thing to do in dead time, which is why every deck lives on your phone and reviews work with no connection — on the metro, in a queue, between classes. Only generating new cards needs the internet.

For the mechanism behind the intervals, see how spaced repetition works.

Questions from language learners

Are flashcards good for learning a language?

For vocabulary and set phrases, yes — this is the clearest case for spaced repetition there is. For grammar you need to produce and for listening, cards support the work rather than replace it. The realistic split is: cards make the words available, conversation and reading make them usable.

How many new words a day should I add?

Ten to twenty is sustainable for most people; the limit isn't how many you can add but how many reviews you'll face in three weeks' time. A hundred new words in one enthusiastic evening turns into a daily review load you'll abandon.

Should I make cards from a word list or from what I'm reading?

From what you're reading. Words you meet in context come with a sentence, a situation and a reason to remember them, and frequency takes care of itself — the words worth knowing are the ones that keep appearing in the material you actually consume.

Which direction should the cards test?

Recognition (target language to your own) is easy and comes first; production (your own language to target) is harder and is what conversation demands. Both directions for words you intend to speak; recognition only for words you just need to read.