Chinese Character Flashcards: How to Make Chinese Flashcards as a Beginner

Let's talk about the elephant in the room: flashcard dread. You know you "should" use them, but they feel like a soulless, repetitive grind.🕖 On the other hand, for learning Chinese in a fast-paced society, flashcards are not just helpful for memorization; they are adapted to the useful fragments of your time. So, it all boils down to how to make it more fun! It's time to rethink your deck.

Why we absolutely need Chinese flashcards: The brain science of "not forgetting"

Basically, our brains are hardwired to forget. It's a feature, not a bug. Without a system to deliberately interrupt that forgetting curve, you'll pour hours into learning characters like (Yesterday) and (To do), only to mix them up a week later. Flashcards, specifically those that use a Spaced Repetition System (SRS), are that interruptor. They force your brain to actively retrieve information just as it's about to fade.

In other words, they turn passive review into active practice.

Reading a list of characters is passive. Seeing a card with and having to produce its meaning ("sunny") and context is a workout for your memory. If you're serious about literacy, you'll need this tool. A good flashcard system supports diverse stimulation to reinforce your memory related to the word. For example, it can include:

Think of it like strength training for your character recognition. You wouldn't expect to get stronger by just looking at weights; you have to lift them. So far as character acquisition is concerned, flashcards are the barbell. They’re the most efficient method to build and, more importantly, maintain your growing vocabulary.

Without digital tools, you can still handmake your Chinese character flashcards

You might think app-based cards are the only way, but let's address the power of going analog. Creating physical cards with a notebook and pen is a profound act of encoding. The process of writing the character (Meal) on one side and its meaning/usage on the other engages motor memory and forces deeper initial processing. It's slower, and that's the point. (On a side note, this is how Chinese students learn English when phones are not allowed at schools.)

Here’s my straightforward method:

The trick is, you should be able to see the character or the word on one side of the page, and check all its definitions and other info on the other side of the page. The physical act of flipping through your homemade deck creates a tactile memory map.

The advantage of handwriting flashcards is that they can build a more solid memory because the act of writing is slower than app-generated flashcards. Therefore, to maximize its advantage, try using them to handle the important, high-frequency words, or the words you find yourself forgetting again and again. All in all, you should narrow down the pool of vocabulary you need to handwrite to make your study more efficient!

Choose your digital weapon for common Chinese words flashcards: Duolingo, HelloChinese, Pleco, Migaku

Now, let's get digital. Not all apps are created equal for serious flashcarding. You'll love the convenience, but you must pick the right tool. That's why we are discussing four Chinese learning apps here. The reasons for choosing them are that Duolingo and HelloChinese represent the passive flashcard group, while Pleco and Migaku help with user-generated flashcards.

Let the system manage the flashcard repetition for you: Duolingo and HelloChinese

Duolingo & HelloChinese: These are great, structured courses. Their built-in "review" functions are essentially flashcards. They’re fantastic for total beginners because the content is pre-made and gamified.

Duolingo and HelloChinese adopt a very similar vocabulary teaching structure. They will feed you new words based on context and scenarios, and make up short phrases or sentences based on the new words to help you get familiar with them. In the following sessions, the apps will keep feeding you new ones and help you review the old ones as well.

However, the downside is a lack of control. You can't easily add your own difficult character, like (Embarrassing), when you encounter it in the wild. They’re more of a guided tour.

HelloChinese main course:

Generate your own flashcards and category: Pleco and Migaku

Pleco: This is the dictionary that becomes a flashcard powerhouse. The beauty is seamless creation. You look up a word like (To envy), tap to add bookmarks, and it instantly generates an entry with definitions and example sentences. You can also categorize your vocabulary. It's the indispensable tool for learner-driven vocabulary.

Migaku: If you're the type who wants to build every card from Netflix shows or YouTube videos, this is your realm. The app allows you to extract words or sentences directly from the videos, and adds pinyin, definitions, and example sentences to your flashcards, together with the clip from the video. I like how it combines media consumption with flashcard making. The downside is, sometimes, if the videos do not feature their own subtitles, the auto-generated subtitles from Migaku are not 100% accurate.

It seems to me that the best strategy is to combine an app like Duolingo with an app like Pleco or Migaku. On the one hand, when you don't have time that day, you can just follow Duolingo's course for a couple of minutes to review your studies. On the other hand, when you get the time to learn Chinese via videos or classes, you can add flashcards on Pleco or Migaku.

Pleco dictionary and bookmarks (You can click the plus sign at the upper right corner to add bookmarks):

How to generate flashcards with Migaku?

As demonstrated in the previous section, Migaku features both a Chrome extension and an app for subtitles and flashcard generation. It can assist in generating both Chinese and English subtitles when the video does not feature any. As of now, Migaku only supports the videos from YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, and Rakuten VIKI.

For example, Migaku app can generate subtitles for this cut from The Double with pinyin. You can also click the words or sentences to add them to your flashcard collections.

FAQs

You'll be amazed by how useful a 5-minute revision is!

This is the moment we all aim for when learning a foreign language: At first, that character seems like an utter stranger. After seeing it three to four times, you can guess its meanings from its look. After six to seven times, you can actively use this word in your expressions! That's the magic of flashcards, and the wonder of human memory! No matter what kind of method or media you are using, you learn a little bit every day, and that's what matters.

Fragmented time matters!