Import your deck from Anki or Pleco

If you already keep a word list in Pleco, Anki or a spreadsheet, you do not have to rebuild it one word at a time. Import it into your flashcards, and each word becomes a card built from its dictionary entry here — with our definitions, audio and practice. You can take the deck out again just as easily.

Before you start

Importing needs a free account — your deck is saved to it, so it is the same on your phone and your computer. It costs nothing on any plan and uses no credits.

One import takes up to 5,000 words, and a deck holds up to 20,000 cards. A bigger list goes in as two files.

From Pleco

1. Export your cards — In Pleco, open Flashcards › Import / Export › Export Cards and export them as a text file.
2. Get the file to the device you are importing on — Email it to yourself or save it to your files.
3. Import it here — On the flashcards page, press Import words, choose From Pleco and upload the file.

From Anki

1. Export from Anki on a computer — Choose File › Export…, pick Notes in Plain Text (.txt), and the deck you want.
2. Import it here — Press Import words, choose From Anki and upload the file.

Whatever note type you used, we look for the field with Chinese in it and a field that looks like pinyin. Formatting, tags and sound files are ignored.

From a list or a spreadsheet

Paste words straight into the box, one per line, or upload a .txt or .csv file. A column copied from a spreadsheet works as it is. Anything after a word is fine — pinyin helps, English is ignored.

What you see before anything is added

Nothing goes into your deck until you have checked it. The preview shows:

• Words ready to add — Each matched to its dictionary entry. Words already in your deck are left exactly as they are, schedule included.
• Words that need a reading — Some characters are more than one word — 长 is cháng (long) and zhǎng (to grow). When your file gives pinyin we use it; when it does not, you pick, or skip the word.
• Words not in our dictionary — Listed so you can see them, with a button to download the list. When you import, we count them — with no name attached — and add the most-requested words first.
• Sentences — A card is one word, so whole sentences are not added. Add the words inside them instead.

Choosing how the words arrive

A deck of two thousand new words, all due today, is not a deck anyone can review. So you choose:

• I’m learning these — 5, 10, 20, 30 or 50 new cards a day, in the order of your file, starting today.
• I already know these — Each word comes up once, spread over the next 2, 4 or 8 weeks — a first review that checks it, without a pile on any one day.

Either way every card starts fresh: a plain-text export carries no review history, and we do not pretend to know what you remember. The first time you see a word, your rating sets its schedule.

Undoing an import, and removing a word

Right after an import, Undo this import takes out exactly the cards it added — words that were in your deck before are untouched.

Any single word can be removed later, during a review: after you reveal the card, choose Remove this word from my deck, then confirm. It will not come back.

Exporting your deck

On the flashcards page, under your deck, choose Export for Anki or Export for Pleco. You get a text file of every card — the characters, the pinyin and the meaning.

• Into Anki — Choose File › Import… and pick the file. The first two columns fill the front and back of Anki’s Basic note type; pinyin, meaning and the traditional form are there as their own columns too.
• Into Pleco — Use Pleco’s flashcard import (Flashcards › Import / Export) and pick the file. It is in the format Pleco reads: characters, pinyin with tone numbers, then the meaning.