Chinese Flashcard Apps: Custom Decks, Vocabulary & Characters
Make flashcard study work the way you want with apps for custom decks, ready-made vocabulary and character practice, audio, and turning Chinese text into study cards.
Custom & Flexible Flashcards
★ Powerful, Customizable Spaced-Repetition Flashcards. Anki is a powerful spaced-repetition flashcard program that gives Chinese learners extensive control over how they study vocabulary, characters, sentences, audio, and more. You can download Anki for desktop, browse our collection of free Chinese Anki decks, or follow our Anki tutorials to learn how to create and customize your own decks.
Free Android / Paid iOS
★ A flexible Quizlet alternative with free flashcards, spaced repetition and multiple study modes. Knowt is a general study and flashcard platform that can be used for Chinese vocabulary practice. Create your own flashcards or study community-made sets, then review with flashcards, Learn mode, practice tests, matching activities and spaced repetition. Knowt can also import Quizlet sets, making it useful for learners who want a Quizlet-style alternative. The free plan includes unlimited flashcards, notes and core study modes, while a paid Ultra plan adds expanded AI and premium features. Because Knowt is not designed specifically for Chinese, the quality of public Mandarin sets can vary. Available on the web, android and iOS.
Free / Paid
★ Dictionary-Integrated Flashcards for Building Vocabulary as You Learn. Pleco is one of the most popular Chinese dictionary apps and includes a powerful built-in flashcard system. Learners can quickly turn words they look up into flashcards, organize them into categories, and use spaced repetition to review vocabulary. Its close integration with Pleco’s Chinese dictionaries makes it especially convenient for learners who want to build flashcards naturally while reading, studying, or looking up unfamiliar words. Available on Android and iOS.
Limited Free / Paid
★ Easy-to-Use Flashcards with a Huge Library of User-Created Study Sets. Quizlet is a general-purpose flashcard and study platform that can be especially useful for Chinese learners taking a class or following a textbook. Its huge library of user-created study sets means you can often search for your textbook, course, or lesson and find Chinese vocabulary flashcards that someone has already created, or you can make your own sets. Quizlet is easy to get started with and offers several ways to practice vocabulary, but it lacks some of the specialized Chinese-learning features and extensive customization found in tools such as Pleco, Skritter, and Anki. Because many sets are created by users, it’s also a good idea to check the material for accuracy before studying it. Available on the web, Android and iOS.
Limited Free / PaidReady-Made Vocabulary Study
★ Study up to 11,000 HSK 3.0 vocabulary words directly from your Apple Watch. Chinese Flashcards - Zungzi is a paid flashcard app that uses spaced repetition to adapt vocabulary review based on how well you know each word. It supports Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Pinyin and Jyutping, Mandarin and Cantonese audio, example sentences, HSK Levels 1–9, progress tracking, daily reminders and watch-face vocabulary complications. Available for Apple Watch through the U.S. App Store.
Paid Apple Watch App
★ Visual HSK Vocabulary Practice with Spaced Repetition. Chinese Vocab: HSK Flashcard is a visual vocabulary app that uses illustrated flashcards to help learners remember HSK-aligned Chinese words. It combines adaptive spaced repetition with native audio, example context, daily challenges, progress tracking and an AI tutor for extra explanations and practice. The app is free to download with limited free content, while full access requires an optional paid subscription. Available on Android and iOS.
Free / Paid
★ Simple Daily Vocabulary Practice with Spaced Repetition. Daily Chinese is a streamlined vocabulary app for learners who want ready-to-use Chinese study material without the setup required by Anki. Choose from premade word packs covering HSK vocabulary, idioms, grammar, everyday topics, and more, or create custom reviews with the words you want to study. Spaced repetition schedules your daily reviews, while different question types test characters, pinyin, and meanings. Cards also include audio and AI-generated example sentences and word insights. Daily Chinese supports both simplified and traditional characters and tracks the vocabulary you’ve learned, making it a good choice for learners who want a simple, structured way to steadily build their Chinese vocabulary. Available on Android and iOS.
Limited Free / Paid
★ Visual HSK Vocabulary Study Tool. HSKMAP is a free, browser-based resource for studying all 5,000 words in the classic HSK 1–6 vocabulary system. Its interactive vocabulary maps let learners browse words by level and view hanzi, pinyin, English meanings, example sentences and audio when available. Built-in flashcards, writing practice and Known/Review markers make it useful for vocabulary review, while progress is stored locally in your browser with no account required. Keep in mind that HSKMAP currently follows the classic six-level HSK vocabulary system rather than the newer HSK framework.
Free / Web-Based
★ Streamlined Chinese Vocabulary Study with Ready-Made Lists. Hack Chinese is a Chinese-specific vocabulary learning platform that takes much of the work out of creating flashcards. Choose from ready-made vocabulary lists for HSK levels, textbooks, graded readers, topics, and other study materials, or create your own lists of words to learn. The platform automatically turns vocabulary into standardized study cards and schedules reviews using spaced repetition. Unlike Anki, Hack Chinese focuses on a streamlined, ready-to-study experience rather than extensive card design and customization, making it a good option for learners who want to spend less time setting up flashcards and more time reviewing vocabulary.
Paid Web-Based
★ Chinese-focused flashcards combine SRS vocabulary review with HSK 3.0 lists, textbook decks, handwriting and pronunciation practice. Laoshi helps learners build and review Mandarin vocabulary with spaced repetition, ready-made HSK 2.0 and HSK 3.0 lists, and decks based on popular Chinese textbooks. You can practice tones, pronunciation and character writing, study grammar points, track progress, and create or import your own word lists. The app is free to download and try, but full access requires a paid subscription after the trial. Available on the web, Android and iOS.
Free Trial / Paid
★ Gamified flashcards combine HSK vocabulary, character recognition, and story-based practice. Macalaoshi Flashcards Chinese is a gamified flashcard app for building Mandarin vocabulary and character recognition through HSK content, daily practice, and a story-driven game. Learners collect and level up more than 1,300 Chinese characters, follow a story mode, maintain study streaks, and track their progress. The app is free to download and includes free content, with additional premium content and cosmetic items available through in-app purchases. Available on Android and iOS.
Free / Paid
★ Learn vocabulary in context with personalized sentences that introduce one new word at a time. Mandarin Mosaic is a sentence-mining and vocabulary app that tracks the words you know and selects Chinese sentences containing one new word, then reinforces them with spaced repetition. Tap words for meanings, pinyin and audio, use premade or custom sentence packs, and practice with the graded article reader. New users receive a one-month free trial, with paid premium access afterward. Learn more on their website. Available on Android and iOS.
Free Trial / PaidCharacter & Handwriting Based Study
★ Learn Chinese characters through radicals, phonetic components, structural patterns, and spaced repetition. HanziFeed is a Chinese character learning app with character decomposition, animated stroke order, SRS review, graded reading, example sentences, audio, quizzes, and search by character, pinyin, English, or handwriting. It supports Simplified and Traditional Chinese and covers HSK 3.0 characters across Levels 1–9. Core features are free, with optional Pro features for expanded reading, study packs, and pronunciation practice. Learn more on their website. Available on Android and iOS.
Free / Paid
★ Structured Chinese Character Study with Spaced Repetition. Remember.it is a Chinese character flashcard system for learners who prefer a structured course rather than creating their own decks. Its curriculum introduces common characters in a planned sequence, teaching simpler characters first and grouping related or easily confused characters together. Lessons are followed by spaced-repetition reviews in which you reveal the answer and indicate whether you remembered the character correctly. With thousands of characters available to study, Remember.it is designed primarily for systematically building Chinese character recognition rather than studying custom vocabulary lists. Available on the web, Android and iOS.
Paid
★ Handwriting-Focused Chinese Character Practice with Spaced Repetition. Skritter is a flashcard-style learning tool designed especially for learners who want to practice writing Chinese characters, rather than simply recognize vocabulary. During reviews, you write characters directly on your phone or tablet, and Skritter provides immediate feedback on your strokes and stroke order. Its spaced-repetition system schedules characters and vocabulary for review based on your progress, while cards can also include definitions, pronunciation, tones, and audio. It is particularly useful if handwriting is an important part of your Chinese studies, but learners looking primarily for traditional front-and-back vocabulary flashcards may prefer a tool such as Anki or Pleco. Available on the web, Android and iOS.
PaidAdd Audio to Flashcards
HyperTTS is an Anki add-on that automatically adds text-to-speech audio to flashcards. It supports numerous Chinese voices from services such as Microsoft Azure, Google, Amazon, and ElevenLabs, allowing learners to generate audio for individual cards or an entire deck. You can choose which card field is read, select a voice, adjust the speed, and save the generated audio directly to your cards. For help installing and using the add-on, follow my step-by-step HyperTTS tutorial.
Free / Paid
PiperTTS for Anki generates text-to-speech audio locally on your computer and adds it directly to your Anki flashcards. Because it runs locally, you can create audio without relying on a paid cloud TTS service. It’s a useful option for learners who want offline audio generation, though the available voices are much more limited than with services such as HyperTTS. It may require a little more setup than a typical TTS tool, including setting up local voices. Mac users should be aware that the developer is currently unsure whether the add-on works on macOS.
FreeCreate Flashcards
HanziToAnki turns Chinese text into ready-to-import flashcards, making it easier to build decks from material you’re actually reading or studying. Paste in Chinese text and the tool extracts vocabulary and adds information such as pinyin and English definitions. It’s especially useful for creating personalized Anki decks from articles, stories, song lyrics or other Chinese content.
Free Web-Based