English | 中文

Preface

• This flashcard deck is in an English-only environment, so users should have a certain level of English proficiency. It is recommended that users have passed the College English Test Band 4 (CET-4), IELTS 4.5, or TOEFL 35.
• This deck is free and will be updated on GitHub (see Release page) and AnkiWeb. Any versions sold on other platforms (e.g., Xianyu, Taobao) are unauthorized; please do not purchase them.
• If you find this deck helpful, please leave a thumbs up on Ankiweb, or give this repository a free Star on GitHub—your support is the greatest motivation for maintenance.
• Join Telegram Group to discuss and share your thoughts (Mainly Chinese): Click here to join.

Overview

• The Anki English Vocabulary Deck published in this repository is designed to help learners acquire English entirely in an English context.
• All prompts, definitions, and example sentences are written in English, helping you train reading and listening skills while memorizing vocabulary.
• Decks follow the principle of atomicity: each card contains only one sense or usage of a single entry, accompanied by example sentences and corresponding audio.
• This minimal-unit design significantly reduces cognitive load, improves memorization efficiency, and makes it easy to relearn or edit individual senses when needed.

Links to explain the principles of Anki cards:

Medium | Blog from Soren Bjornstad | Blog from Jan Meppe

Recommended Study Philosophy

❗ Don’t memorise the full definition.
Use each card in a “guess → check → refine” cycle:

1. Front side: Read the example sentence(s) and infer the word’s meaning from context.
2. Back side: Reveal the concise definition and compare it with your guess.
   • If they match, great—move on.
   • If they differ, reread the sentence and note which contextual clues you overlooked.
3. Goal: Recognise and understand the word in real-world use; precise recitation of the dictionary wording is unnecessary.

Current Release Snapshot (2026-04-04)

• Strict release size: 21,788 atomic cards
• Lemma coverage: 4,006 lemmas in the strict release
• Example coverage: up to 5 examples per card
• Metadata policy: 0 released cards with missing IPA, missing word audio, missing definitions, or missing examples
• Deck structure: cards are grouped into 5 COCA rank buckets of roughly 1,000 ranks each

What Was Improved

• Cleaner atomic splitting: cards are generated from a stricter sense-level parser so that one card corresponds to one sense or one usage only.
• Better JSON edge-case handling: parsing now covers more Merriam-Webster structures such as nested sense blocks, usage containers, and additional example-bearing fields.
• Higher release quality: spreadsheet-unsafe cells, empty example cards, and missing-audio release rows were filtered out of the strict release.
• Template alignment: both front and back templates now consistently support up to 5 examples.
• Less duplication: duplicate (word, part of speech, definition) rows were reduced from 1,462 in the old project to 2 in this release.

Features

Corpus-driven Vocabulary Ordering (COCA)

• Data Source: Cards are ordered by frequency in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) from highest to lowest. COCA contains over one billion words across eight genres (blogs, general web pages, movie transcripts, spoken interviews, fiction, magazines, newspapers, academic writing), ensuring modernity and diversity in frequency data.
• Lemmatization: Forms such as decide / decides / decided are merged into a single lemma in COCA statistics, avoiding repetitive exposure to similar forms in early stages.
• Scope: The current version includes the top 5,000 high-frequency lemmas.

Expert and Learner-friendly Definitions (Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary with Audio)

• Target Audience: This dictionary is perfect for ESL, EFL, ELL, and TEFL learners, offering concise yet precise definitions.
• Coverage: Nearly 100,000 words and phrases, with 3,000 core vocabulary items specially marked for priority learning.
• Example Sentences: Over 160,000 contemporary examples covering spoken and written contexts; 22,000+ idioms, collocations, and fixed expressions to enhance authentic usage.
• Consistency: Unified formatting and labeling ensure a consistent style across cards, facilitating bulk editing and filtering.

High-fidelity Audio Support

• Word Pronunciation: Native-speaker recordings from Merriam-Webster ensure quality and accurate phonetic alignment.
• Sentence Reading: High-quality TTS synthesis with manually adjusted pacing, stress, and intonation, ideal for shadowing and listening practice.
• Dual-track Audio: Separate audio for word and example sentence, allowing focused listening or full sentence practice.

Repository Contents

• COCA-English/notes.csv: import-ready CSV used to build the deck
• COCA-English/templates/: note template and stylesheet
• COCA-English/medias/: shared media assets
• See the Releases page for the current release notes and downloadable assets.

Preview

Light Mode (Front / Back)

Night Mode (Front / Back)

Usage Guide

Download Anki

Desktop (Windows/macOS)

• Anki Official Site | GitHub Releases

iOS/iPadOS: AnkiMobile Flashcards

• App Store

Paid app: as of June 7, 2025, approximately $24.99 USD / ¥168 CNY / ¥4000 JPY / NT$790 / HK$188.

Android: AnkiDroid

• Play Store | GitHub Releases

Note: Do not use the version distributed by “Anki China”; it has compatibility issues!

Download the Deck

Visit the Releases page to download the latest .apkg file.

Import the Deck

Open Anki and click “Import File” at the bottom of the main window. Select the downloaded .apkg file.

Recommended Settings:

Enable “Import any deck presets” during import to apply the settings used at the time of publication.

Enable Sync (Optional but Recommended)

Register and log in to an AnkiWeb account to sync progress and backup across devices for free.

Friendly Links

• @egg rolls, Japanese-Chinese Vocabulary Deck, covering JLPT N1–N5 and additional vocabulary. (Only Chinese version)
• @egg rolls, eggrolls-FREQ60K-MWLD (Anki Deck), for 60k lemmas
• @菜鸡, Second Language Acquisition Guide to Learning Japanese, recommended one-hour read. (Only Chinese version)

Special Thanks

Thanks to @egg rolls for sharing valuable experience and maintaining templates during deck creation.
Thanks to @KarasawaKoko for providing the online TTS service.
Thanks to all members of the group for feedback during testing, helping to continuously improve this deck.

License

This deck is created by @Ecattea and released under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. You are free to use, copy, distribute, and adapt this deck under the following terms:

1. Attribution (BY):
   • You must credit the original author or repository name.
   • Include the project link when distributing or adapting.
   • If modified, indicate “Modified from original” prominently.
2. Non-commercial (NC):
   • Prohibit any commercial use, including but not limited to:
     • Selling this deck (or derivatives) for profit;
     • Integrating content into paywalled products or services;
     • Using content for commercial advertising or branding.
3. ShareAlike (SA):
   • If you remix, transform, or build upon this material, you must distribute your contributions under the same CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
4. No Additional Restrictions:
   • You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that restrict others from exercising the rights granted by the license.