How FlashCarding came to be

This is a story that begins in the summer of 2021.

Back then, I found myself in a transition period. I had recently turned 18 and left university to explore different paths and reconnect with who I was outside the crushing academic pressure. It was a summer of seeking genuine experiences and connections, rediscovering myself in social contexts that had been out of reach until then.

It all began with a magical encounter during a stopover in Berlin, on my way to Poland. I met her. A Swedish girl. And it was, quite simply, captivating. It was one of those rare, dazzling evenings where you feel like you’ve known someone forever, sparked by shared passions and a sense of instant understanding that’s hard to put into words.

Suddenly, learning Swedish became more than a fleeting pursuit. It felt like a way to bridge a gap and deepen a bond with someone who had sparked deep curiosity within me. I already knew that passive, low-effort methods wouldn’t cut it, so I wasn’t really considering the typical language learning apps at that point. I was looking for something more involved, more immersive, and more effective, no matter how unconventional or demanding it was. A few days later, while spending my last days in Poland, I bought a set of physical flashcards for Swedish, along with a beginner textbook.

Back home, I discovered Anki, but I initially felt reluctant to use it. Perhaps it was the proximity of my school years at that time, but the usual sequence of thinking the answer in your head and then flipping the card felt too passive and somewhat sleep-inducing. It reminded me too much of the mindless re-reading of passages and rote memorization I had so many times dreaded back in school. It lacked the active engagement I was looking for.

The spark came one day when, through a bit of experimentation and almost by accident, I came across something different. I started creating typing-based flashcards in Anki, but instead of hiding single words, I hid the entire target language sentence. The idea of being forced to translate entire sentences from English to Swedish, as an absolute beginner with zero knowledge, was absurdly challenging. And rightfully so, for the first days making and reviewing even 10 of these sentence-based flashcards felt like a monumental mental workout. I was forcing my brain to actively remember entire sentences, to reconstruct them word by word, recalling not just vocabulary but also word order, grammar, and spelling.

It was intensely demanding, yes, but also surprisingly effective. Much to my amazement, within a matter of weeks I started experiencing a tangible shift, as if something had just clicked. Common vocabulary and patterns, like those “filler words” that make up 70% of a language, began to surface more naturally, and the spaced repetition algorithm was working wonders helping me recall many sentences in a matter of seconds.

Besides this, I made sure to include synthetic audio alongside each flashcard, ensuring I always heard the correct pronunciation after completing it. During this initial learning stage, I deliberately avoided speaking. In a sense I feared it as much as any beginner language learner does, but in hindsight I find that such a conservative approach may have allowed my brain to better absorb and consolidate the input without being heavily influenced by inherent biases and preconceptions derived from my native languages.

This period of focused, sentence-based flashcard study, lasted only for about 2 months, but looking back it was a remarkably effective use of my time, allowing me to lay a strong foundation in a relatively short time frame. All the patterns which appeared over and over again in my set of flashcards had become second nature to me, always at the tip of the tongue and ready to be used.

On New Year’s Day, a little over 3 months into my journey, I called the her out of the blue to send my best wishes. The idea had only occurred to me a couple of days before. Speaking Swedish for the first time felt surreal. I wasn’t completely fluent but I was more resourceful than I would have imagined and I was able to follow the conversation and express my thoughts and ideas quite naturally. This rediscovered contact continued over a couple more conversations in the weeks that followed.

Later in February 2022 I visited Sweden for the first time, staying with some of the friends I had met on the summer trips. It was also at that time that the seed of an idea for a language learning app was planted.

I realized few apps offered typing-based flashcards, and the ones that did only supported typing single words and not whole sentences. Moreover, some friends and relatives asked me about the method I had applied and how they could use it as well, but in setting up the Anki workflow and explaining it to them, I realized most people found the process too laborious and the Anki interface too complicated and unintuitive.

However, it wasn’t until the heart-wrenching conclusion of the Swedish affair in July 2022 that the commitment to build FlashCarding truly took hold. The aftermath of that summer had led to a forced re-evaluation of my pursuits, and building this app became more than just a project; it felt like a way to channel my energy and find purpose amidst an otherwise blank canvas.

Since then and during all the time that followed, this has been my focus. Learning to code from the ground up, navigating countless technical challenges, and constantly reworking the vision of what FlashCarding should become.

Now, after two and a half years of dedicated effort, I am especially proud to offer FlashCarding to you, fellow language learner.

The goal has always been to build upon proven language learning tools and effective techniques —those typically used by experienced learners— and make self-guided vocabulary-focused learning accessible to everyone, moving beyond the usual gimmicks and entertainment.