Excel sheets and anki

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Ccaesar
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Excel sheets and anki

Postby Ccaesar » Sun May 29, 2022 10:31 am

Hello everyone.
i am curious: How many of you use Excel as a way to list up vocabulary? I got inspired recently to start using it to line up the word category, translation and an example. After which I started wondering how I can turn it into an anki card. Probably there are several threads on the forum dealing with this, but I would like to know if it's possible to add sound as well? How many categories can be transfered and how do you maintain the format?
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LunaMoonsilver
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Re: Excel sheets and anki

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Sun May 29, 2022 11:53 am

I use Google Sheets/Excel to bulk make Anki cards - essentially, I collect vocab/sentences across all languages on a massive Google Sheet and then when it comes to adding them into Anki, I transfer them to an Excel .csv file and import them. It saves so much time on making cards, though there's a bit of initial set-up when it comes to originally creating specific types of card in Anki.

For example, for Polish I have an 'ULTIMATE Polish deck' that contains individual vocabulary and sentences. Vocabulary is set up so I have to recognise the Polish word in English, the English word in Polish, and then be able to type the Polish word correctly. Sentences are set up so I have to recognise the Polish sentence in English and be able to produce the English sentence in Polish (no typing though, as these are a massive time suck for me and I don't rate their effectiveness vs. how much they put me off doing my reviews).

I have sound for all these too - e.g. if I'm using Assimil, I'll cut up the dialogue in Audacity into individual sentences and name the files 'polish_assimil_001', '...002', etc. Then I can just use the concatenate function in Google Sheets to create the info needed for Anki by only entering the file name one column to the right (and because these are labelled with numbers at the end, as long as everything is in the right order, I can usually just drag this column down and it'll auto-populate with ascending numbers, which also saves time and is why I don't use descriptive file names).

Code: Select all

=CONCATENATE("[sound:",E2,".mp3]")
^ you'd put that in cell D2, in this example.

Obviously, you have to make sure you have a field for sound on the cards you're creating and that you've then added {{Sound}} (or whatever you've called it) to the card template too.

I only transfer over four pieces of information per vocabulary/sentence unit: target language, English (my NL), tag, and sound (where sound is available). If you're adding examples too, you'll have to play around with how that works for you, but I find it easier to separate them out.
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Ccaesar
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Re: Excel sheets and anki

Postby Ccaesar » Sun May 29, 2022 3:32 pm

LunaMoonsilver wrote:I use Google Sheets/Excel to bulk make Anki cards - essentially, I collect vocab/sentences across all languages on a massive Google Sheet and then when it comes to adding them into Anki, I transfer them to an Excel .csv file and import them. It saves so much time on making cards, though there's a bit of initial set-up when it comes to originally creating specific types of card in Anki.

For example, for Polish I have an 'ULTIMATE Polish deck' that contains individual vocabulary and sentences. Vocabulary is set up so I have to recognise the Polish word in English, the English word in Polish, and then be able to type the Polish word correctly. Sentences are set up so I have to recognise the Polish sentence in English and be able to produce the English sentence in Polish (no typing though, as these are a massive time suck for me and I don't rate their effectiveness vs. how much they put me off doing my reviews).

I have sound for all these too - e.g. if I'm using Assimil, I'll cut up the dialogue in Audacity into individual sentences and name the files 'polish_assimil_001', '...002', etc. Then I can just use the concatenate function in Google Sheets to create the info needed for Anki by only entering the file name one column to the right (and because these are labelled with numbers at the end, as long as everything is in the right order, I can usually just drag this column down and it'll auto-populate with ascending numbers, which also saves time and is why I don't use descriptive file names).

Code: Select all

=CONCATENATE("[sound:",E2,".mp3]")
^ you'd put that in cell D2, in this example.

Obviously, you have to make sure you have a field for sound on the cards you're creating and that you've then added {{Sound}} (or whatever you've called it) to the card template too.

I only transfer over four pieces of information per vocabulary/sentence unit: target language, English (my NL), tag, and sound (where sound is available). If you're adding examples too, you'll have to play around with how that works for you, but I find it easier to separate them out.



Thank you very much for the comprehensible and informative reply :D
1 x
Hiragana practiced in hand : 48 / 48
Katakana practiced in hand : 48 / 48
Kanji : 50 / 2000
Assimil Japanese with Ease : 27 / 100

Ccaesar
Orange Belt
Posts: 216
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:47 pm
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Re: Excel sheets and anki

Postby Ccaesar » Thu Jun 02, 2022 5:25 pm

LunaMoonsilver wrote:I use Google Sheets/Excel to bulk make Anki cards - essentially, I collect vocab/sentences across all languages on a massive Google Sheet and then when it comes to adding them into Anki, I transfer them to an Excel .csv file and import them. It saves so much time on making cards, though there's a bit of initial set-up when it comes to originally creating specific types of card in Anki.

For example, for Polish I have an 'ULTIMATE Polish deck' that contains individual vocabulary and sentences. Vocabulary is set up so I have to recognise the Polish word in English, the English word in Polish, and then be able to type the Polish word correctly. Sentences are set up so I have to recognise the Polish sentence in English and be able to produce the English sentence in Polish (no typing though, as these are a massive time suck for me and I don't rate their effectiveness vs. how much they put me off doing my reviews).

I have sound for all these too - e.g. if I'm using Assimil, I'll cut up the dialogue in Audacity into individual sentences and name the files 'polish_assimil_001', '...002', etc. Then I can just use the concatenate function in Google Sheets to create the info needed for Anki by only entering the file name one column to the right (and because these are labelled with numbers at the end, as long as everything is in the right order, I can usually just drag this column down and it'll auto-populate with ascending numbers, which also saves time and is why I don't use descriptive file names).

Code: Select all

=CONCATENATE("[sound:",E2,".mp3]")
^ you'd put that in cell D2, in this example.

Obviously, you have to make sure you have a field for sound on the cards you're creating and that you've then added {{Sound}} (or whatever you've called it) to the card template too.

I only transfer over four pieces of information per vocabulary/sentence unit: target language, English (my NL), tag, and sound (where sound is available). If you're adding examples too, you'll have to play around with how that works for you, but I find it easier to separate them out.



Hello Luna! I reviewed your post now that I had more time (and sleep). Is there a chance I could have a call with you and view you my build to see if I followed those steps right?- if yes please pm me. I can do discord, skype, teams, teamspeak :)
2 x
Hiragana practiced in hand : 48 / 48
Katakana practiced in hand : 48 / 48
Kanji : 50 / 2000
Assimil Japanese with Ease : 27 / 100

Ccaesar
Orange Belt
Posts: 216
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:47 pm
Languages: Danish (N) English (B2-C1) German (B1-B2) Italian(B1), Japanese (beginner)
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Re: Excel sheets and anki

Postby Ccaesar » Mon Jun 06, 2022 12:37 pm

Are you writing the name in hand for each sound file that goes in there? I am uncertain how the concat function does this on it's own.
2 x
Hiragana practiced in hand : 48 / 48
Katakana practiced in hand : 48 / 48
Kanji : 50 / 2000
Assimil Japanese with Ease : 27 / 100


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