FlashCarding Guide

FlashCarding combines 2 learning strategies:

Let’s take a closer look at each of the modes and see how everything works in more detail. We’ll start with flashcards mode — the feature that gives the app its name.

Flashcards mode

Typing-based flashcards

Studying with flashcards is quite simple. FlashCarding will show you a sentence in your source language (your native or well-known language) and your task is to translate either a single word or the whole sentence (customizable via settings) into the target language (the language you’re learning).

FlashCarding was designed to make this process as smooth and enjoyable as possible. It shows you the exact amount of text fields to complete, all sized in proportion to the words that belong there.

By default, pressing Space moves you to the next word, similar to how you would naturally type a sentence. If it’s the last word it submits the whole flashcard and moves you to the next one.

FlashCarding also provides audio for all sentences, colored text that tell you if you’re on the right track while typing, and hints that reveal the next letter of a word.

Typing a single word is easier and more manageable as a beginner or for distant languages. Full sentence typing is a bit more demanding and involved, but it brings the full power of active recall and it’s actually more achievable and fun than most people would think.

Creating cards and generating sentences

All flashcards you ever study are sourced from decks. Creating a card in one of your decks is quite straightforward. First, you specify the word or expression you want to learn. Then, you select one or more sentences that contain the word, or you can generate new ones if none exist.

FlashCarding handles sentence generation internally, without requiring any manual input. It strives to generate sentences that are clear and illustrative of the word you’re trying to learn, similar to the ones you typically find in online dictionaries. They are almost always better suited for language learning than random sentences taken from books or the internet.

All sentences that have ever been generated are stored in a common pool, so that they are available to be reused by anyone.

Reading mode

Assisted reading

Reading mode lets you import your own text-based materials and read at your own pace.

FlashCarding highlights words you don’t know in blue (based on your tracked vocabulary), and it leaves the rest of the words unhighlighted. By default, moving to the next page adds all new words to your passive vocabulary.

You can click words you have trouble understanding at any moment. This will show a popup window with the most common translations and additional information like part of speech and a phonetic transcription.

As you’re reading you can right-click any word to seamlessly create a card in one of your decks. This integration allows you to create flashcards from words you don’t understand or want to practice more without the need to keep switching pages.

By holding and dragging you can translate groups of words. This works well when you’re struggling to understand an idiomatic expression that makes little sense by simply looking at the translations of individual words, or for sentences with complex structure or grammar.

Importing a text

Importing a text into your library is fairly straightforward. You can import texts from 3 sources:

When you import from EPUB files (and also some PDFs) FlashCarding will try its best to split the text by its natural boundaries (unlike similar apps that chunk imported texts based on some arbitrary word count number).

Vocabulary tracking

All words you encounter in flashcards and reading mode are automatically tracked and saved as part of your vocabulary. Words are grouped into two categories depending on how well you know them:

Words are always tracked by their base form (the lemma). For example, verb conjugations like “drove” and “driven” in English would be grouped under the infinitive form “to drive”. With this, FlashCarding ensures that your vocabulary list stays lean and avoids cluttering it with numerous forms of words you already know, allowing you to channel your energy towards new, useful vocabulary.

Not all words are tracked though. FlashCarding does a good job of filtering out person names, digits, symbols, place names, and other irrelevant noise. However, this distinction can sometimes be subtle and many proper nouns are still tracked. For example, a word like “Europe” is a proper noun but is certainly meaningful and worth learning on its own.

FlashCarding uses your tracked vocabulary, and not arbitrary learning paths or fabricated reward systems, as the main indicator of your progress (and your potential) in the language.

About the built-in content

Creating your own decks with the vocabulary that you want to practice and being able to import and read content that’s of interest to you are two of the app’s most distinct and powerful features. They offer a great deal of flexibility and put you, the learner, in the driver’s seat.

However, FlashCarding also provides some built-in content for those who prefer a more guided experience:

These resources are available for all languages. Anyone can use them to get started right away and familiarize themselves with the app’s features. But it’s for a reason that experienced learners often recommend creating your own Anki decks. Learning with your own tailored materials makes a bigger difference than most people think.

Final tips