Send words from your mining tools
Yomitan, asbplayer and other tools that support AnkiConnect send words to Flashfriend the way they send them to Anki. They land in your Inbox, ready to turn into personalised cards.
Yomitan guideasbplayer guideLearn Mandarin Chinese with flashcards that work the way your memory does.
We pick the Mandarin words that matter most and colour every tone, help you make each one unforgettable with memory techniques and audio, then test you on it just before you’d forget it.
14 days free, then normally $7 $2 a monthnormally £6 £1 a month for your first year. Cancel anytime.
- Computer · in your browser
- iPhone · install now
- Android · install now
At the shopping centre · shū sounds like “shoe”“A book tucked inside a shoe”
书shū · bookshū sounds like “shoe”. A book tucked inside a shoe, at the shopping centre.
- Your place for sh- words: the shopping centre
- Sounds like the word: shū, “shoe”
- Tone colour: first tone, so the book is red
How it works
Try it yourself!
Make a card in three taps. Pick a place, pick a scene, and see what Flashfriend adds.
Your word书shū“book”
Your place
Your scene
Pick your place for sh-
Every word that starts with sh happens in one place you know. In the app, you pick it once.
Any place you know
Pick a scene
shū sounds like “shoe”. Pick the scene you like best. In the app, you can also write your own.
Write your own scene
Add the tone colour
shū is the first tone, and the first tone is red. Flashfriend does this part for you.
That’s your card.
A place for the sound, a scene you picked, and the colour on top. In the app, the places are ones you know and the scenes can be anything you can picture. Flashfriend suggests a few to get you going.
书shū· bookshū sounds like “shoe”. First tone, so the book is red.
What you learn next
Always the most useful word next.
Flashfriend teaches you the most frequently used words in the language you’re learning, in the best order to learn them. Each word gets a card that suits it.
Up next:
- 1书book(Picture card)
- 2猫cat(Picture card)
- 3突然suddenly(Sentence card)
- 4了done, changed(Grammar)
- 5米饭rice(Picture card)
Picture card
Simple words get a picture card
Things you can see or do, like book and cat. The picture is made from your place and a scene, the way you just tried.
书shū· bookshū sounds like “shoe”.Two cards, both ways
- 书See the word, picture what it means
- 书See the picture, say the word yourself
Sentence card
Harder words and grammar get a sentence card
Sentence cards use words you already know, plus exactly one new one. So you learn words and grammar intuitively.
- 猫māo✓ known
- 突然tūrán+1 new
- 吃chī✓ known
- 了le✓ known
- 米饭mǐfàn✓ known
The cat suddenly ate the rice.
Two cards, both ways
- 猫＿吃了…猫突然吃了…Fill the gap, with the picture as a hint
- 突然your sentenceUse the word in a sentence of your own
Sentences unlock once you know enough picture words, so every one is a sentence you can almost read.
Why it works
Seven memory techniques, built into every card.
Most flashcards give you a word and its translation, and leave the remembering to you. Flashfriend does the work that makes a word stick, using techniques from memory research.
Pictures, not just translations
Your memory holds onto pictures far better than words, so every word gets a second way back. And a picture links the meaning straight to the new word, instead of routing it through your own language.
Every word gets a picture.
Research: Paivio, 1971 · Nelson et al., 1976 · Comesaña et al., 2009
A word means something different to everyone
Things that mean something to you are the easiest to recall. So the picture starts from what the word means to you, not a stock photo.
You pick the scene, or make up your own, so the picture is yours.
Research: Symons & Johnson, 1997 · Pruss et al., 2025 · Slamecka & Graf, 1978
You’re in the picture
We remember what happens to us far better than what happens to anyone else. So when a scene has someone in it, it’s you: handing over the cash, hugging the fridge.
Describe yourself once, and every scene stars you.
Research: Grilli & Glisky, 2010 · Cunningham et al., 2008 · Wollen et al., 1972
Tones and genders, in colour
The details that slip away first, like a word’s tone or gender, stick when you can see them. So the tone or gender becomes the colour of the thing you remember.
In Mandarin, mǐ is green and fàn is blue, so the bowl is green and the fan is blue.
Research: Godfroid et al., 2017 · Paivio, 1971
Same sound, same place
Memory champions remember by placing things somewhere they know. Every word that starts with the same sound happens in one place you pick.
Recall the place, and the word’s first sound comes back with it.
Research: Maguire et al., 2003 · Dresler et al., 2017
One new word at a time
You learn most from sentences you can almost fully read. When you know nearly every word, you understand the whole sentence, so the one new word and the grammar around it both sink in.
i+1 sentence cards: words you know, plus exactly one new one.
Research: Hu & Nation, 2000 · Laufer & Ravenhorst-Kalovski, 2010
Back just before you forget
Each card comes back right as you’re about to forget it. Remembering it yourself at that moment is what makes it last, and every time you do, the gap grows. So your reviews go to the words that need them.
Spaced repetition builds lasting memory with far fewer reviews.
Research: Murre & Dros, 2015 · Cepeda et al., 2006 · Roediger & Karpicke, 2006
The research behind these techniques
- Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and Verbal Processes. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. archive.org/details/imageryverbalpro0000paiv
- Nelson, D. L., Reed, V. S., & Walling, J. R. (1976). Pictorial superiority effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 2(5), 523–528. doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.2.5.523
- Comesaña, M., Perea, M., Piñeiro, A., & Fraga, I. (2009). Vocabulary teaching strategies and conceptual representations of words in L2 in children: Evidence with novice learners. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 104(1), 22–33. doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2008.10.004
- Symons, C. S., & Johnson, B. T. (1997). The self-reference effect in memory: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 121(3), 371–394. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.121.3.371
- Pruss, Karni, & Prior (2025). Self-reference promotes vocabulary learning in a foreign language. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. doi.org/10.3758/s13423-025-02674-w
- Slamecka, N. J., & Graf, P. (1978). The generation effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 4(6), 592–604. doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.4.6.592
- Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2010). Self-imagining enhances recognition memory in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage. Neuropsychology, 24(6), 698–710. doi.org/10.1037/a0020318
- Cunningham, S. J., Turk, D. J., Macdonald, L. M., & Macrae, C. N. (2008). Yours or mine? Ownership and memory. Consciousness and Cognition, 17(1), 312–318. doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2007.04.003
- Wollen, K. A., Weber, A., & Lowry, D. H. (1972). Bizarreness versus interaction of mental images as determinants of learning. Cognitive Psychology, 3(3), 518–523. doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(72)90020-5
- Maguire, E. A., Valentine, E. R., Wilding, J. M., & Kapur, N. (2003). Routes to remembering: the brains behind superior memory. Nature Neuroscience, 6(1), 90–95. doi.org/10.1038/nn988
- Dresler, M., Shirer, W. R., Konrad, B. N., Müller, N. C. J., Wagner, I. C., Fernández, G., Czisch, M., & Greicius, M. D. (2017). Mnemonic training reshapes brain networks to support superior memory. Neuron, 93(5), 1227–1235. doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2017.02.003
- Hu, M., & Nation, I. S. P. (2000). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), 403–430. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66973
- Laufer, B., & Ravenhorst-Kalovski, G. C. (2010). Lexical threshold revisited: Lexical text coverage, learners’ vocabulary size and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, 22(1), 15–30. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66648
- Godfroid, A., Lin, C.-H., & Ryu, C. (2017). Hearing and seeing tone through color: An efficacy study of web-based, multimodal Chinese tone perception training. Language Learning, 67(4), 819–857. doi.org/10.1111/lang.12246
- Nyikos, M. (1988). The effect of color and imagery as mnemonic strategies on learning and retention of lexical items in German (Doctoral dissertation). Purdue University. docs.lib.purdue.edu/dissertations/AAI8814499
- Palmer, J. A. (2012). The effect of furigana on lexical inferencing of unknown kanji words (Master’s thesis). Brigham Young University. scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3235
- Murre, J. M. J., & Dros, J. (2015). Replication and analysis of Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve. PLOS ONE, 10(7), e0120644. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120644
- Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
- Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
Stats
Watch your vocabulary grow.
See the words you know well and every day you studied. In the app, detailed graphs and stats show how all your learning is going.
Coming from Anki? Bring everything.
- Your cards and every review come with you, so nothing starts over.
- Export back to Anki any time, pictures and audio included.
Pro
Take your cards further. Pro plugs into your tools.
Practise with your AI
Connect Claude or ChatGPT and it knows your deck. Practise real conversations, by text or by voice, using the words you're learning, powered by the latest foundation speech models.
Connect your AI toolSay it out loud Coming soon
When reviewing your flashcards, speak a sentence and get live corrections.
Launch offer · your first year
normally $7 $2 a month. normally $10 $4 with Pro.normally £6 £1 a month. normally £8 £2 with Pro.
Billed yearly. Try everything free for 14 days first. Reviewing your cards is always free.
Regular
Everything for learning with flashcards.
Normally $7$2a month
Billed $24 for your first year · launch offer
$7a month
Billed monthly
Normally £6£1a month
Billed £12 for your first year · launch offer
£6a month
Billed monthly
- A picture, memory hook, tone or gender colours and voice for every word
- Up to 400 pictures a month: about 20 new cards a day
- Thousands of the language’s most useful words, in the order to learn them
- Learn sentences and grammar
- Stats on your progress
- Anki import with your history, export any time
- Your cards stored in the cloud, so you can use them on any device
Pro
Everything in Regular, plus:
Normally $10$4a month
Billed $48 for your first year · launch offer
$10a month
Billed monthly
Normally £8£2a month
Billed £24 for your first year · launch offer
£8a month
Billed monthly
- No monthly limit on pictures
- Mining from Yomitan, asbplayer and other tools that support AnkiConnect
- Your deck in Claude, ChatGPT and other AI tools
- Live corrections on sentences you say out loud Coming soon
- 14-day free trial of the whole plan
- Cancel anytime
- Reviewing your deck is always free, and it's yours to export
Guides
All guidesStep-by-step help for every setup.
Import from Anki, mine words from what you watch and read, connect your AI. A few minutes each.
- Bring your Anki deck, with its review historyImport your Anki cards with every review, so nothing starts over.
- Mine with Yomitan, no Anki neededProAdd words to Flashfriend while you read in your browser, without Anki or AnkiConnect.
- Mine with asbplayer, no Anki neededProSentences and audio from shows and videos, straight into Flashfriend, without Anki or AnkiConnect.
- Connect your AI toolProSpeak with your words in Claude and other MCP apps.
- Export to AnkiTake your deck, pictures and audio to Anki, any time.
- Your first weekPicture words, reviews and how many new words a day.
- Sentence mining, with or without AnkiProCollect words from what you read and watch, with the sentence you found them in, and turn them into cards.
- Learn words from YouTube videosProWatch YouTube in the language you're learning and save words, with the line and a clip of it being said, to Flashfriend.
FAQ
Good questions.
Do I have to stop using Anki?
No. Import your deck with its history, and export it back whenever you like. Your pictures and audio go with it.
Can I bring my existing deck?
Yes. Your reviews come too, so nothing starts over. Words you already know are used to build your sentences.
What happens if I cancel?
Your deck stays yours. You can keep reviewing it in Flashfriend for free and export it to Anki any time. Making new cards needs a plan.
What's in the free trial?
Everything in the plan you pick, free for 14 days, with up to 150 pictures. You add a card when you start, and you're charged when the trial ends unless you cancel first. Whatever you decide, you keep your deck and can review it for free.
Can I pay in the app?
Yes. You pay by card in the app, and your plan works on every device you sign in on.
What's in Pro?
Mining from Yomitan, asbplayer and any tool that supports AnkiConnect, feedback on sentences you say out loud, and speaking with your words in your AI tool through MCP. Everything in Regular too.
What's MCP?
A standard way for AI tools to use other apps. With Pro, Claude and other AI tools can see your words, so you can have spoken conversations at your level. They can also add new words to Flashfriend.
Is there a limit on cards?
Make as many as you'll really learn. A generous daily limit keeps things fair, and you won't meet it learning normally.
What happens after the first year?
Your plan renews at the normal annual price ($70 / £60 for Regular, $100 / £80 for Pro). You can cancel any time before.
Do I need to know any of the language?
No. You start with simple words you can picture, and sentences come once you know enough.
Is there an iPhone or Android app?
Yes, and you install it straight from this site, no app store needed. Tap Install now on your phone: on Android it's one tap, on iPhone you add it from the Share menu. It sits on your home screen and opens full screen. Your cards are stored in the cloud, so they follow you to every device.
Which languages can I learn?
Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and French. Each has its own list of the most useful words, and you can learn more than one: switch between them in Settings.
Make your first card in 30 seconds.
Free for 14 days on your phone or computer, then normally $7 $2 a monthnormally £6 £1 a month for your first year.