{"id":10098,"date":"2019-02-27T22:18:37","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T21:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/?p=10098"},"modified":"2023-12-19T11:48:56","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T10:48:56","slug":"free-and-easy-audio-flashcards-for-chinese-dictation-practice-with-anki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/free-and-easy-audio-flashcards-for-chinese-dictation-practice-with-anki\/","title":{"rendered":"Free and easy audio flashcards for Chinese dictation practice with Anki"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A poll I did a few years ago here on Hacking Chinese revealed that listening ability was perceived as the hardest skill when learning Mandarin. That might come as a surprise to beginners, who think that learning characters is surely the most difficult aspect of the language, but listening is probably considered more difficult because native speakers talk fast, with varying accents and without a built-in repeat button.<\/p>\n

Identifying spoken words and phrases is also a very common element in formal Chinese language education: the dreaded \u542c\u5199\/\u807d\u5beb (t\u012bngxi\u011b,\u00a0“dictation” or literally “listen, write”).<\/p>\n

Practising dictation on your own used to be difficult. Sure, if you had a friendly native speaker who could quiz you or had access to the audio to your textbook and didn’t mind spending hours creating audio flashcards, it could be done, but there are obvious problems with both approaches.<\/p>\n

Today, though, it is both easy and free. In this article, I will show you how to practise for your\u542c\u5199\/\u807d\u5beb with Anki! If you want to know more about Anki and spaced repetition in general, I suggest you read this article first.<\/a><\/p>\n

Free and easy audio flashcards for Chinese dictation practice with Anki<\/h3>\n

Before we go any further, let’s have a look at what we want to achieve. Here’s a video I recorded on my phone after going through the process described in this article:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/audio-flashcards.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

As you can see (and hear), these are simple audio flashcards that will make sure you nail every\u00a0\u542c\u5199\/\u807d\u5beb coming your way. It’s also great if you want to review Chinese without staring at your phone or for basic listening practice in general.<\/p>\n

To achieve this, you only need a computer and a phone. You can probably get away without using the computer, but I prefer to create cards and manage my decks on a big screen. You can also do without the phone if you want to study in a web browser. Please note that Anki is free on all platforms except iOS, where it currently costs $25 (one-time purchase).<\/p>\n

This guide was done on a Macbook (most screenshots) and a OnePlus 6 (the video above). The process might look slightly different on your systems, but it should be mostly the same. The Anki version being used is 2.1.9.<\/p>\n

Please note that this article is not meant to teach you the ins and outs of how Anki works. It is an extremely powerful piece of software that can do almost anything you want in terms of flashcards, but that’s beyond the scope of this article! If you want a more in-depth discussion about flashcards, see the discussion starting in this article:<\/a><\/p>\n

How to best use flashcards to learn Chinese<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n