Anki for Languages — Deep Dive

The serious learner's SRS. This page goes deeper than the general Spaced Repetition page on language-specific Anki workflow: card templates, AnkiConnect, mining-friendly fields, the FSRS migration, and which addons are worth it. See also: FSRS, Shared Decks, Sentence Mining, TTS for Anki.

Cross-links: Edu / Anki SRS · Edu / Language Learning · Reading / Bilingual.

★ ★ The Anki ecosystem (free / OSS)

• ★ ★ Anki desktop — AGPL-3; macOS / Windows / Linux. Full-featured. The reference client.
  • https://github.com/ankitects/anki
• ★ ★ AnkiDroid — AGPL-3; Android; free in F-Droid + Play Store. 700k+ active users in 2026.
  • https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android
• ★ AnkiWeb — free sync service run by the Anki team. Browser review fallback.
• AnkiMobile (iOS) — paid, ~$25 one-time. Funds the entire free ecosystem. Same features as desktop. The honest framing: if you can afford $25 and use iOS, buy it; you're paying for Anki, not for the iOS app.

Why Anki for languages specifically

• Cards are HTML/CSS/JS — your card front/back can show audio, image, sentence, dictionary excerpt, example sentences, hints. No competitor matches this flexibility.
• AnkiConnect addon exposes a local HTTP API, which is what makes Yomitan / asbplayer / Migaku / Vocabsieve all work.
• Massive shared deck ecosystem — see Shared Decks.
• FSRS modern scheduler; ~30% fewer reviews than SM-2 for the same retention.

Note types for languages

The default "Basic" note works for word ↔ translation. Better:

• Sentence card with cloze — see the word in context; cloze deletion forces production.
• Vocab card with audio + image + IPA — multimedia cements memory.
• Listening card — front is audio only; back reveals text. Trains comprehension.
• Production card — front is L1 sentence; back is L2; type-the-answer. Active recall.

Templates worth copying: JP1000 / Tango, Refold 1k, Migaku JP/Spanish/etc templates, MorphMan-friendly card types.

Killer addons for languages

• ★ ★ AnkiConnect — required for nearly every mining workflow. JSON-RPC over localhost:8765.
  • https://github.com/FooSoft/anki-connect
• ★ ★ FSRS — built-in since Anki 23.10; enable in deck options. See FSRS.
• ★ AwesomeTTS / HyperTTS — generate audio fields from text. See TTS Addons.
• ★ MorphMan / AnkiMorphs — sort cards by "i+1" (one new word per sentence). The classic Japanese / Korean immersion addon, now multi-language. AnkiMorphs is the maintained fork.
• ★ Image Occlusion Enhanced — for kanji / hanzi components, IPA charts, maps.
• Migaku Japanese / Migaku Browser Extension — paid + free parts; pitch accent + furigana
  • dictionary.
• Yomitan integration — Yomitan can directly create Anki cards via AnkiConnect.
• Review Heatmap — daily-streak visualisation, useful motivation.
• Speed Focus Mode — auto-fail cards you take too long on.
• Frozen Fields — keep some fields filled across batches of new cards (e.g. "source: Death Note ep 3" stays sticky while you mine).

The mining workflow shape

Native content (book/show/podcast) →
  Lookup tool (Yomitan / Vocabsieve / Migaku / Language Reactor) →
    AnkiConnect →
      Anki note created with: word, sentence, definition, audio, screenshot →
        FSRS schedules review →
          You review on phone (AnkiDroid) during commute →
            Words become known

See Sentence Mining for the full pipeline.

Card scheduling for languages — practical settings

• New cards/day: 10-20 for sustainable; 20+ if you have hours daily and FSRS retention set to 0.9.
• FSRS desired retention: 0.9 default. Lower (0.85) = fewer reviews but more forgotten words; higher (0.95) = more reviews. 0.9 is the research-recommended sweet spot.
• Maximum interval: 36500 (essentially infinite). Don't cap it.
• Bury related cards: yes, so you don't see related cloze deletions same day.

Languages where Anki is the canonical core

• Japanese: Tango N5/N4/N3/N2/N1 + Yomitan-mined sentence cards.
• Mandarin: HSK 1-6 + Pleco-exported cards + native sentence mining.
• Korean: TTMIK + Refold 1k Korean.
• Spanish / French / German / Russian: Refold 1k frequency + frequency 5K decks.
• Latin / Greek / Hebrew: lemmatised vocab decks; classics communities maintain them.

Sync, backup, multi-device

• AnkiWeb sync is free, unlimited, and just works.
• Local backup: .colpkg exports + cloud sync your Anki2 folder.
• Self-host sync: run ankisyncd (community) or anki-sync-server if you need privacy / air-gap. The default AnkiWeb is fine for most.

Anki vs Hosted alternatives — when to use what

• Anki: any serious learner. Free forever. Steep curve, infinite ceiling.
• AnkiHub: paid (~$5/mo); shared deck improvements + collab; popular in medical, growing in language. Optional.
• AnkiPro: free mobile app branded confusingly; not affiliated with Anki team. Use AnkiDroid / AnkiMobile instead.
• Mochi / RemNote / Quizlet: nicer UX, but no AnkiConnect = can't plug into the mining ecosystem. Hard pass for serious language learners. See Edu / Spaced Repetition for the broader SRS comparison.

Pick this if…

• Default serious-learner SRS: Anki desktop + AnkiDroid + free AnkiWeb sync.
• iOS, willing to fund the project: AnkiMobile (~$25 once).
• You want one new word per sentence: AnkiMorphs.
• You're going to mine native content: AnkiConnect + Yomitan / Vocabsieve / asbplayer.
• You hate Anki's UI: RemNote / Mochi (but you lose mining tools).