Anki Korean: Decks, Setup and Card Design for Learners

Anki Korean study uses a free spaced-repetition flashcard program where you can use shared decks or build your own cards with Hangul, audio and example sentences. This page takes you from nothing to a first day of reviews in about 15 minutes, in five steps: install Anki, choose or build a deck, design the card, add audio and sentences, and set a daily habit. It also lists the mistakes that make learners quit in the second week.

Last updated: 2026-10-09. Prices, features and store listings change; check the Anki website and your app store before you buy or install.

Anki Korean: the Essentials

Anki shows you a card, you try to remember the answer, and you tell it how well you did. It then decides when to show the card again. A card you knew well comes back after a long gap, and a card you forgot comes back soon. This method is called spaced repetition: reviews are spaced out so that each one happens just before you would forget. It is one of the most efficient ways known to keep a large vocabulary, and it works for Korean words, sentence patterns and even Hangul syllables.

Anki does not teach you anything by itself. It holds what you have already met, in a lesson, a textbook or a conversation, and keeps it from fading. Use it for vocabulary and sentences. Do not use it as your only study tool, because it has no explanations, no speaking practice and no listening beyond the audio you give it. The Korean flashcards on this site follow the same card design if you want ready-made decks to start from.

The table compares the four parts of the Anki family. Every row has one honest drawback.

Source: the Anki website and the app-store listings, checked 2026-10-09.

What Do You Need before You Start?

Here is the checklist before you begin. Setup is short, but a few things save you trouble later.

Before you start

• Time: about 15 minutes for setup, then 10 to 20 minutes a day.
• Difficulty: beginner. You need no programming.
• Cost: free on computer and Android; the iPhone and iPad app is a paid, one-time purchase.
• Tools: a computer for building cards (it is easier than a phone), a phone or tablet for daily reviews, and a free AnkiWeb account to sync the two.
• Korean keyboard: a Korean (2-beolsik) keyboard on your computer and phone, if you want typed-answer cards. The Korean keyboard layout guide shows where each letter sits.
• A source of words: a textbook unit, a lesson on this site, or a word list. Anki is empty until you give it material.
• Reading level: you should be able to read Hangul. If you cannot yet, learn it first with the Korean alphabet lessons; Anki cards that rely on romanization teach the wrong habit.

Step 1: Install Anki

Action: install the desktop program, make a free AnkiWeb account, then install the mobile app and sign in to the same account.

How: download Anki from the project's official website, not a third-party site. On the desktop, use the Sync button once you are signed in to your AnkiWeb account. Do the same on your phone. The sync copies decks, cards and your review history in both directions, so it does not matter which device you review on.

You will know it worked when a test card you made on the computer shows up on your phone after you press Sync on each device.

Common mistake: studying on two devices without syncing. If you review on your phone and then on the computer without syncing in between, you can end up with a conflict, and Anki will ask you which copy to keep. Sync before and after every session.

Step 2: Choose or Build a Deck

Action: pick one deck for the next month, either a shared deck or one you build.

How: you have three options.

1. Download a shared deck. Anki's website has a shared-deck list where you can search for "Korean". You will find decks based on textbooks, on TOPIK vocabulary lists and on word frequency. Names, download counts and quality change often, so this page does not name one deck as the best.
2. Import a deck from your textbook or course. Some textbook and course providers release word lists in a format Anki can import. A deck that follows your textbook, unit by unit, is the most useful kind because your cards match what you are learning.
3. Build your own. This is slower at the start and gives the best result. Each time you meet a new word or sentence in a lesson, you add one card.

Whichever you choose, run this accuracy checklist on the first twenty cards before you trust the deck:

• Is every Hangul word spelled correctly? A typo teaches a wrong spelling.
• Are particles shown in a way that makes sense? Look for 이/가 and 은/는 used correctly in sentences.
• Does each word have a clear English meaning, not just a romanization?
• Do the audio files play, and do they match the word on the card?
• Are verbs given in the dictionary form ending in 다, such as 먹다, so you learn the form you will look up?
• Is there an example sentence on at least most cards?

If a deck fails more than two or three of these checks, do not use it. A bad deck costs you months, because you review the same mistake every day.

You will know it worked when you can open your chosen deck and read a random card without finding an error.

Common mistake: choosing the biggest deck. A deck with thousands of cards looks impressive and is discouraging. Start with a small deck at your level; you can add a second one later.

Step 3: Design the Card

Action: use one card layout for the whole deck: Hangul on the front, meaning and context on the back.

How: in Anki, each card is made from a note with fields, and the note type decides which fields go on which side. The simplest note type, Basic, has a Front field and a Back field. The table shows a template that works well for Korean.

That example sentence is 사과를 먹어요 (sagwareul meogeoyo) [사과를 머거요]. It shows the object particle 를 after a vowel and the polite verb ending 어요, so one card teaches the word and how it behaves.

Use these rules when you design the cards:

• One idea per card. A card that asks for three meanings is hard to grade honestly.
• Hangul only on the front. Romanization is a helper for the first days. Keep it off the card so your eyes learn to read Hangul.
• Add the example sentence from the start. A word alone is easy to forget; a word in a sentence is easy to use.
• Use the dictionary form for verbs and adjectives, such as 먹다 (to eat), and show the polite form in the sentence.

Anki offers other note types. Three are useful for Korean:

• Basic (and reversed card) makes two cards from one note: Korean to English and English to Korean. Use it for words you need to say, because English-to-Korean recall is the harder skill.
• Basic (type in the answer) asks you to type the answer. For Korean, you type in Hangul with your Korean keyboard. It trains spelling, and the typing step makes lazy guessing harder. Try it with 한국어 (hangugeo) [한구거], the Korean language.
• Cloze hides part of a sentence. It is the best choice for particles and endings, which have no single English meaning. To make a cloze note for the copula, type 저는 학생이에요, select 이에요 and press the cloze button in the editor (Ctrl+Shift+C on desktop). The card then shows 저는 학생[...] and you fill in the blank. After a consonant, the ending is 이에요 (학생이에요 [학쌩이에요]), and after a vowel it is 예요.

You will know it worked when you can read the back of a card and know how to say the word, what it means and how to use it, without leaving Anki.

Common mistake: putting the whole dictionary entry on the card. A card with six meanings and four example sentences takes a minute to grade. Keep the back short.

Step 4: Add Audio and Sentences

Action: attach a pronunciation clip and one sentence to every card.

How: audio is the part of a Korean deck that is most often missing or wrong, because Hangul spelling does not always match the sound. For example, 학교 is spelled with ㄱ but said [학꾜], and a card without audio hides that. In Anki, a sound file is stored with the card and played when the card appears, so you hear it each review. Common sources, from best to worst:

1. Audio from your textbook or course, for your own use. Check the publisher's terms before sharing a deck that contains it.
2. Your own recording, ideally from a Korean teacher or a language partner you trust.
3. A text-to-speech (TTS) add-on. Anki add-ons can generate speech from the text. Machine speech is convenient, but it is not always right, so compare it against a dictionary clip for tensing and linking.

For sentences, take them from where you learned the word, because a sentence you have met has a memory attached to it. A short sentence also lets you practise the grammar: the cloze card for the copula is one example.

For the sentence 저는 학생이에요 (jeoneun haksaengieyo) [저는 학쌩이에요], the cloze hides 이에요. If you need a reminder of why this ending changes, the Korean grammar lessons explain it.

You will know it worked when every new card plays audio on the answer side and shows one sentence.

Common mistake: adding audio you did not check. A wrong clip is reviewed every few days for years.

Step 5: Review Daily

Action: do all your due reviews every day, and limit the number of new cards.

How: Anki's study screen shows three numbers: new cards, cards you are learning and cards due for review. Press "Show Answer", then grade yourself on the buttons Anki shows (Again, Hard, Good, Easy). Be honest: if you hesitated, press Again or Hard. The scheduler uses your answers to set the next gap, and dishonest grades make it schedule badly.

The most important setting is new cards per day. Every new card you add comes back many times in the following weeks, so reviews grow faster than new cards do. Use this simple arithmetic to plan:

Start at 10 to 15. After two weeks, if your daily session is comfortably under 20 minutes, raise it a little. If you skip a day, do not panic and do not double the new cards; just do the reviews that are due. Reviews matter more than new cards. Many learners go past their limit and then stop altogether, so a lower limit that you keep is better than a high one you abandon.

Other habits that work:

• Review in the same place and time each day, such as with breakfast or on the train.
• Say the word aloud before you reveal the answer, then listen to the audio.
• Delete or fix a bad card at once. If a card keeps failing, rewrite it with a better sentence rather than grading it Again for weeks.
• Pair Anki with other study. Cards hold words; lessons and conversation give you new ones. The Korean study routine shows how to fit 15 minutes of review into a day.

You will know it worked when you have done reviews for seven days in a row and the daily time is stable.

Common mistake: adding 50 new cards on a motivated first day. Two weeks later you owe hundreds of reviews and give up. Pace yourself.

What Mistakes Should You Avoid?

These are the most common ways Anki use goes wrong, with the fix for each.

1. Too many new cards. The review load builds up. Fix: lower the daily new limit to 10 and do all reviews before adding anything.
2. Words with no sentences. You remember the word and cannot use it. Fix: add one short sentence to each card.
3. Unchecked shared decks. Spelling mistakes, wrong glosses and bad audio spread through the deck. Fix: run the accuracy checklist in Step 2 and fix errors as you meet them.
4. Romanization on the front. You read the Latin letters and skip the Hangul. Fix: keep the front in Hangul only.
5. Grading dishonestly. Pressing Good when you guessed means the card returns too late. Fix: press Again whenever you hesitated.
6. Using Anki as the only tool. It cannot teach grammar or give speaking practice. Fix: keep a lesson or textbook and some listening or conversation alongside it.

How Long and How Much Does It Take?

Setup is about 15 minutes. The daily habit takes 10 to 20 minutes for most learners at 10 to 15 new cards a day. The cost is nothing on desktop and Android, and a one-time payment on iPhone and iPad. Building your own deck adds about 1 to 2 minutes per card; a ready-made deck removes that work and trades it for the checking in Step 2.

If you want a different tool, the best Korean flashcards app and best Korean vocabulary app comparisons cover Quizlet and other apps. Back in the Korean learning apps guide, the same six criteria are applied to every app.

Who Is Anki For?

• A beginner who just finished the alphabet should start small: a deck of the 100 most useful words, with audio, and 10 new cards a day.
• A textbook student should build or import a deck that follows the book, one unit at a time, so the cards match the lesson.
• An exam candidate can use a vocabulary list for the level they are studying. Most TOPIK word lists are compiled by publishers and teachers, so treat their sizes as estimates; check topik.go.kr for official information on the test.
• Someone who dislikes setup may prefer a ready-made app. Anki's strength is control, which is also its cost.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Anki free? The desktop program (Windows, macOS and Linux) and the Android app are free, and the AnkiWeb sync service is free too. The iPhone and iPad app is sold as a one-time purchase in the App Store, so check the current price there. Shared decks are free to download, but their quality depends on whoever made them.

Which Korean deck should I start with? Start with a small deck that matches your level and your textbook, not the biggest deck you can find. Open the deck and check twenty cards: Hangul spelled correctly, a clear meaning, audio that plays, and an example sentence. If the cards fail that check, build your own. Names and download counts of shared decks change, so search the shared-deck list for "Korean" and judge each deck on the cards.

How many cards a day? Add 10 to 20 new cards a day and do all of your reviews every day. At 15 new cards a day you meet 105 new cards a week and 450 in a 30-day month, and each one comes back for review several times. If your daily review passes about 30 minutes, lower the new-card limit until it fits.

How do I add audio? Put the sound file into the card's audio field, or attach it in the editor, so the card plays it automatically. Sources include audio from the textbook you use (for your own study), your own recordings, or a text-to-speech add-on. Check the audio against a dictionary or a Korean speaker, because machine speech can mispronounce words such as 학교 [학꾜], which needs tensing.

Can I use Anki on a tablet? Yes. iPad users can run the iOS app, and Android tablets can run AnkiDroid. Both sync with the desktop program through a free AnkiWeb account, so your cards and review history follow you. A tablet is also a good place for typed-answer cards if you have the Korean keyboard installed.