Chinese Anki Setup Guide (and When Not to Use Anki)

沉浸 TeamAugust 16, 20268 min read

A working Chinese Anki setup takes about 30 minutes: install Anki, load one good starter deck, set up a card template with characters, pinyin, and audio, turn on the FSRS scheduler, and cap new cards at 10 to 15 a day. This guide walks through each step, the add-ons worth having, and how to mine sentences into Anki while you read. It also covers the part most guides skip: when Anki is the wrong tool, and what to use instead.

Why Chinese learners swear by Anki

Anki is a free, open-source flashcard program built around spaced repetition: it schedules each card's next review for right before you'd forget it. (New to the concept? Our Chinese flashcards guide explains how SRS works and compares the alternatives.) For Chinese specifically, Anki's pull is control. You decide exactly what a card shows: characters, pinyin, tones, audio, a screenshot from the show you mined the sentence from. Nothing else gives you that much say.

The trade is setup time. Anki out of the box is a blank engine, and the first hour decides whether it becomes a daily habit or an abandoned icon. So let's set it up properly.

Step 1: install Anki (and know the costs)

Desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux): free, from the official Anki site. This is where you'll do setup and add-ons.
AnkiDroid (Android): free, syncs with desktop through a free AnkiWeb account.
AnkiMobile (iOS): a one-time purchase of about $25. It funds the whole project, but it surprises people, so know before you commit your workflow.
AnkiWeb: free syncing plus a basic browser interface, so your reviews follow you everywhere.

Step 2: pick one starter deck (not five)

Anki's shared-deck library has hundreds of Chinese decks. You want exactly one to start:

An HSK vocabulary deck. Search the shared decks for your level. The HSK sequence is the standard path; our HSK levels guide shows what each level covers, and the HSK 1 through HSK 5 word lists let you preview the words themselves.
A graded sentence deck. "SpoonFed Chinese" is the best-known: thousands of sentences with audio, ordered so each one only uses words you've seen. Strong for grammar feel and listening.

Download one, do a week of reviews, and only then consider adding more. A word of honesty here: premade decks are scaffolding. The cards that stick hardest are the ones you mine from your own reading and watching, because they carry context. More on that in Step 5.

Step 3: a card template that fits Chinese

If you build your own notes (worth it once you start mining), keep the note type simple. Four fields cover nearly everything:

Hanzi: the word or sentence in characters, e.g. 复习
Pinyin: with tone marks (fùxí), shown only on the back
Meaning: a short gloss, "to review / revise"
Audio: a native or TTS recording that plays on the back

From those fields, two card templates: a recognition card (Hanzi on the front; pinyin, meaning, and audio on the back) and, if you want to train output, a recall card (Meaning on the front; everything else on the back). Resist the urge to add six more fields on day one. Every field you add is friction on every card you ever make.

Step 4: turn on FSRS and set sane limits

Modern Anki ships with FSRS, a scheduler trained on millions of real reviews that noticeably cuts your daily workload compared with the old default algorithm. It's a toggle in deck options, and turning it on is the single best settings change you can make. While you're in deck options:

New cards per day: 10 to 15. This is the lever that controls your future review load. High new-card counts are how Anki streaks die.
Leave the rest alone. FSRS's defaults are good. Tweaking twelve settings you don't understand yet is a classic first-week trap.

Step 5: add-ons worth installing (a short list)

AnkiConnect. The bridge that lets other software talk to Anki: dictionary apps, browser extensions, and reading apps use it to push cards into your decks. If you mine cards from anywhere outside Anki itself, you want this.
HyperTTS (or AwesomeTTS). Batch-adds audio to cards from text-to-speech voices, so your downloaded deck without sound becomes a listening deck in one pass.
Review Heatmap. A streak calendar. Pure motivation, and motivation is most of the battle.

That's the list. Add-on maximalism is another setup trap; three good ones beat fifteen.

Mining cards into Anki while you read (this is the good part)

The strongest Anki decks aren't downloaded, they're mined: every card is a word or sentence you personally met in something you were reading or watching. The traditional workflow is copy the sentence, switch apps, paste, find audio, format, repeat. It works, and it's tedious enough that most people stop doing it.

This is the workflow we've spent the most effort collapsing at Chenjin. With AnkiConnect installed, set your flashcard destination to Anki (Settings → Flashcards, pick your deck, hit Test Connection), and then every card you create anywhere on the site goes straight into your Anki deck instead of Chenjin's built-in system:

Tap a word in a graded story → a formatted word card with audio lands in Anki.
Select a phrase in the sentence inspector → a sentence card with a translation.
Mine a subtitle line while studying a YouTube video → a sentence card with the clipped audio and a screenshot.
The Chenjin Chrome extension does the same from anywhere on the web.

Two practical notes: Anki has to be open on your computer for AnkiConnect to receive cards (it listens locally), and you'll add the site to AnkiConnect's allowed origins in its config the first time (the settings page walks you through it). Anki's own duplicate detection keeps re-mined words from piling up. Card syncing is part of Chenjin's Plus plan; reading and the built-in flashcards are free.

When not to use Anki

Honest section, as promised. Anki is the right tool for a lot of learners and the wrong tool for plenty of others:

If setup friction will stop you from starting. A simpler app you open daily beats a perfect Anki setup you abandon in week two. That's not a character flaw; it's tool fit.
If review debt spirals demotivate you. Miss a week in Anki and 400 due cards greet your return. Some people shrug; for others it ends the habit. Know which you are.
If you want cards connected to content. Anki cards are islands. In an integrated system, a card links back to the story it came from, your known-word stats update your reading recommendations, and new input and review live in one loop. Chenjin's built-in SRS runs on FSRS and includes 15 new cards a day free, with zero configuration. Pleco's flashcards fill the same role for dictionary-centric learners; see the full comparison in our Chinese flashcards guide.
If your whole study life is on an iPhone and the AnkiMobile price is a blocker.

And whichever side you land on: flashcards of any kind are the supplement, not the meal. Daily reading and listening is what makes the words matter, which is why the immersion-first roadmap puts input at the center and SRS in a supporting role.

Frequently asked questions

What's the best Anki deck for Chinese?

For pure vocabulary, a well-reviewed HSK deck for your level. For sentences and listening, SpoonFed Chinese. Long term, the best deck is the one you mine yourself; downloaded decks are how you start, not where you end up.

How many new Anki cards per day for Chinese?

10 to 15. That's roughly 300 to 450 new words a month, at a review load most people can hold for years. If daily reviews climb past 30 minutes, lower the new-card rate.

Should my deck use simplified or traditional characters?

Match your input. Learning from mainland media and HSK materials means simplified; Taiwan-focused learners want traditional. Don't study both scripts on separate cards at the start; read our simplified vs. traditional guide for the fuller picture.

Can I use Anki and a learning app at the same time?

Yes, and it's a great combination if the two are connected. The failure mode is two disconnected review queues that each think they own your day. That's the problem AnkiConnect syncing solves: one app for input and mining, one review queue in Anki.

Want to try mining without the copy-paste? Create a free Chenjin account, read a graded story, and tap the words you don't know. Keep them in the built-in reviews, or point them at your Anki deck and watch the cards arrive.