How To Use Anki Decks

Anki Characters Deck

  • contains characters for Elementary (HSK1-3), Intermediate (HSK4-6), and Advanced (HSK7-9) level
  • stroke order is also shown on the back of the card, as well as the character’s traditional form(s)
  • multiple pronunciations each character attains in the HSK opus are shown, in order of their first appearance in the vocabulary list
  • for Elementary level (HSK1-3), the pronunciations from Intermediate and Advanced level were left out (although they are shown on Characters Cheat Sheets)
  • some characters, which only attain the neutral tone, were also written with their default tone (for example, the character 楚 chu > 楚 chu chǔ)
  • there is also one additional field with character’s usages in the HSK opus; for the character 的, that would look like: HSK1: 的 (de) 别的 (biéde) 真的 (zhēnde) 有的 (yǒude) HSK2: 目的 (mùdì) 的话 (dehuà) HSK3: 有的是 (yǒudeshì)

Anki Vocabulary Deck

  • character translations were made by using CC-CEDICT
  • for Elementary level (HSK1-3), some definitions were left out (old character variants, abbreviations, or possible surnames)
  • for Intermediate level (HSK4-6), only character variants were left out
  • for Advanced level (HSK7-9), nothing was left out
  • similar-sounding words contain the words with identical syllables but different tones, for example: 知道 (zhīdao) 直到 (zhídào) 指导 (zhǐdǎo)
  • some words have been shown multiple times (for example, 还 as both huán and hái)
  • this deck should prove really useful, especially if you are studying with the complementary cheat sheets.

Font Troubleshooting

If you want a nice-looking Anki deck, you’ll have to download three fonts:

It is worth noting that HSK stroke order font is using the Taiwanese standard, which slightly differs from the Mainland Chinese standard.

After downloading the fonts, you’ll have to install them on your computer. In case you are using AnkiDroid, you’ll have to move three .ttf files to AnkiDroid/Fonts/ folder; you’ll also need to rename the fonts to: CNstrokeorder.tff, FZKai-Z03S.tff (simplified), and FZKaiB-Z03.tff (traditional).