README

This repo is meant to automatically create HSK revision decks for AnkiApp. English and French Decks are available in xml_outputs/.

To re-create your own deck, you need to download html source code of this page. If it does not work, copy this link: https://hsk.academy/fr/hsk-1-vocabulary-list. Then save the html data locally. Create_flashcards.ipynb allows to parse the html data, extract the word list, and create a .xml file to import in AnkiApp.

Note that there are two type of deck being created: one for HSK words (vocabulary list), and one for practice sentences.

AnkiApp allows to automatically detect Pinyin, decks xml_outputs/automatic_pinyin/ are tailored for this functionnality. However, the detected pinyin are often wrong. I thus created custom decks with the correct pinyin. The problem is that there is no way to always show pinyin on the back of the card in "alternate" revision mode. For "words" decks, the custom decks thus have every word in double, one for the English -> Chinese revision, one for the Chinese -> English revision. Sentences decks are only meant to be Chinese -> English, so cards are not duplicated.

---

If you want to use non English decks (Spanish, Arab, etc.)

You can change the language of the html page on the website. Some minor tweeking to hsk_html_parser/html_parser.py might be required (namely in the the metadata of xml elements and the grammar_indicator attribute. However, it seems that the translations for the cards are from the english words and not directly from the chinses words, which lead to bad translations. Personnaly, I use a Chinese-French dictionary (the CFDICT database available here (https://chine.in/mandarin/dictionnaire/)) to translate the words myself using the ChineseToFrenchDictionary class.

---

Some usefull info on how the data is organised

Structure of the content dictionnary extracted from the html data

1. Key word

Contains a list of dictionnaries. Each dictionnary has 8 keys:

'id', 'hanzi', 'hanziRaw', 'trad', 'pinyinToneSpace', 'def', 'mp3File', 'oggFile'

Example of a dictionnary:

{'id': 684,
 'hanzi': '得(助动词)',
 'hanziRaw': '得',
 'trad': '得(助動詞)',
 'pinyinToneSpace': 'dé',
 'def': 'to have to, to need to (particle used to express capability, possibility, degree, effect...); must; ought to; to need',
 'mp3File': '得(助动词).mp3',
 'oggFile': '得(助动词).ogg'
}

• id contains just the number of the entry.
• hanzi contains the chinese character (simplified), with indication of auxiliary particules (助词) or auxiliary verbs (助动词) etc.
• hanziRaw contains the chinese character whitout indication of auxiliary particules (助词) etc.
• trad contains the traditionnal hanzi.
• pinyinToneSpace contains the pinyin.
• def contains the definition/translation
• mp3file contains the name of the mp3 file with the audio of the word.
• oggFile contains the name of the ogg file with the audio of the word.

2. Key wordIdToCharacters (useless)

Contains a dictionnary whose keys are the ids of every word, and the content are the decomposition of the world into different characters Example of (key, value) pairs:

'762': [{'slug': '果', 'hanzi': '果', 'wordId': 762},
        {'slug': '汁', 'hanzi': '汁', 'wordId': 762}],
'684': [{'slug': '得', 'hanzi': '得', 'wordId': 684}],

It seems that slug and hanzi values are always the same.

3. Key localizedSentences

Contains a list of dictionnaries. Each dictionnary has three keys: 'hanzi', 'pinyinTone', 'def' Example:

{'hanzi': '你把火点着吧。',
 'pinyinTone': 'Nǐ bǎ huǒ diǎnzhe ba.',
 'def': 'You light the fire.'
}

4. Key hskLevel

The corresponding HSK level, i.e. 4 for instance.

Desired structure of the .xml file

(two possible structure for a card):

<deck name="Chinese">
    <fields>
        <chinese name='Chinese' sides='11' lang='zh-CN'  pinyinMode='hint'></chinese>
        <text name='Translation' sides='01' lang='en-EN'></text>
    </fields>
    <cards>
        <card>
            <chinese name='Chinese'>月亮</chinese>
            <text name='Translation'>Lune</text>
        </card>
        <card>
            <chinese name='Chinese'>
                <chinese>介绍</chinese>
            </chinese>
            <text name='Translation'>Introduce someone</text>
        </card>
    </cards>
</deck>

French

The French dictionnary cfdict.u8 used for translations has the following source: https://chine.in/mandarin/dictionnaire/CFDICT/ (CC BY-SA 3.0)