{"id":4577,"date":"2014-03-06T10:21:41","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T02:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/?p=4577"},"modified":"2026-02-14T20:36:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T19:36:51","slug":"flashcard-overflow-about-card-models-and-review-directions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/flashcard-overflow-about-card-models-and-review-directions\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashcard overflow: About card models and review directions"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most common questions I receive is what my flashcard deck looks like and how I think one should organise a deck of flashcards for optimum learning. The reason I seldom give straight answers to these questions is that the true answer is usually “it depends”. However, I can still say quite a lot about what it depends on and I will try to do so in this article.<\/p>\n

\"overflow\"<\/a>Note that what I say here is generally applicable for flashcard programs in general (including paper flashcards, actually), but the specific software you’re using might limit what you can do. Anki<\/a> is the only program I know that allows you to do everything I talk about here and more (although it is certainly harder to use). Other programs might be really good for other reasons, such as Skritter<\/a> being excellent for handwriting, but this is not something I plan to discuss in this article. Instead, I will keep to major principles and leave different software for later.<\/p>\n

Flashcard overflow, part 1: Review direction<\/h3>\n

One of the most immediate problems that faces people who use spaced repetition software is that they need to decide how they want their flashcards to work. In its most basic form, this question is a matter of direction. The most basic kind of flashcards have two sides, front and back, and you need to decide what goes on the front and what goes on the back.<\/p>\n

Sounds easy? It’s not. Even if your particular program only allows you to enter three elements on each flashcard, such as Chinese character(s), pronunciation and definition, you still face the problem of directionality. Given three elements, you can set up three different kinds of cards. Actually, if we mix in audio recordings or pictures, you can have more combinations than this, but let’s not make it more complicated than it already is:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Chinese characters on the front, pronunciation and definition on the back<\/li>\n
  2. Pronunciation on the front, Chinese characters and definition on the back<\/li>\n
  3. Definition on the front, Chinese characters and pronunciation on the back<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This means that if we want to learn 500 words from the textbook we’re currently using, we could end up with 500 words, but 1500 flashcards, three for each word. This might be manageable, but if your vocabulary swells to thousands of words, your flashcard deck will become unusable very quickly. This is what I mean when I say flashcard overflow and it’s a very real problem. Before we start talking about solutions, let’s look at a second problem that is the nail in the coffin for the idea that you can create flashcards for everything.<\/p>\n

    Flashcard overflow, part 2: Review level<\/h3>\n

    As if it wasn’t enough that we tripled the number of flashcards above, we also have to take into account what linguistic level we’re aiming for and therefore what we write on each side of the flashcard. Here’s a breakdown of the possible levels, starting with the smallest:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Character components<\/a> (phonemes for sound)<\/li>\n
    2. Individual characters<\/a> (monosyllables for sound)<\/li>\n
    3. Single words<\/li>\n
    4. Short phrases and collocations<\/li>\n
    5. Sentences<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Let’s say we encounter the sentence \u4eca\u5929\u592a\u9633\u5f88\u5927 and we want to learn it. Should we put the entire sentence on one card? Should we add \u592a\u9633\u5f88\u5927 to focus our attention on the fact that we can say “the sun is big” in Chinese to indicate that it’s sunny? Should we add \u4eca\u5929, \u592a\u9633 and \u5927 as three separate words? Should we also add \u9633 as a separate character that means “sun”? Or perhaps break it down even further and add \u961d which isn’t a character in itself, but is a common component that means “hill”, and \u65e5 which is a character that also means “sun”?<\/p>\n

      Clearly, we can’t do all of this at the same time, especially not consider that each question can be answered in three ways depending on what you put on the front of the flashcard, the number of cards will spin out of control very fast. The question, then, in what should we add?<\/p>\n

      What cards should I add? It depends on what you want to learn!
      \n<\/strong><\/h3>\n

      Let’s return to the “it depends” answer I usually give to people who ask about flashcard models and review directions. First, the review direction (i.e. what you put on the front of the card) is mostly determined by what you use your flashcards for and what you cover through other means of studying (remember, spaced repetition software isn’t a panacea<\/a>).<\/p>\n

      Here’s my personal philosophy:<\/p>\n