Flashcard Types
LanguageDen uses nine card formats to test a word from different angles.
When you generate flashcards for a word, LanguageDen creates a set of cards using different types. Each type exercises a different aspect of your knowledge: reading recognition, active production, listening, context, and (for scripts) character knowledge.
During review, the card back shows the Reader excerpt when the word was saved from a Passage (with the surface form highlighted). Generation also prefers that excerpt for cloze sentences.
Card types overview
| Type | Prompt | Answer | What it tests |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recognition | The word in the target language | Its translation | Passive recognition — do you know what it means? |
| Production | “How do you say [translation]?” | The word in the target language | Active recall — can you produce the word? |
| Cloze | A sentence with the word replaced by ___ |
The missing word (full sentence shown as context) | Active recall in context |
| Listening recognition | Audio of the word (TTS); prompt asks what it means | The translation | Listening comprehension — meaning from sound |
| Listening production | Audio prompt asking you to say the translation in the target language | The word in the target language | Listening + production — produce from sound |
| Image based | A vivid scene description, or a photo from Unsplash (hotlinked with photographer attribution) | The word in the target language | Visual association — strongest for concrete nouns |
| Character sound | The character or letter | The sound / romanization | Script learning — what sound does this make? |
| Character class | The character | Its class (for example mid / high / low in Thai) | Script learning — character classification |
| Character mnemonic | The character | The mnemonic word (and meaning, when present) | Script learning — memorable association |
Which types are generated automatically?
When you click Generate flashcards on a word detail page, LanguageDen picks types from a fixed list based on the word's part of speech. The AI fills in prompts and answers for those types.
- Nouns — recognition, production, cloze, listening recognition, listening production, image based
- Verbs — recognition, production, cloze, listening recognition, listening production
- Adjectives & adverbs — recognition, production, cloze, listening recognition
- Phrases, idioms & expressions — recognition, production, cloze
- Pronouns, conjunctions, interjections & other — recognition, production
- Prepositions — recognition, production, cloze
You can always add or remove individual flashcards from the word detail page after generation.
Which card is shown in a review?
During a review session, LanguageDen schedules the word, then picks one of that word’s flashcards to show. Selection depends on learning stage (from the word’s FSRS stability), not on the AI:
- Introduction (new or low stability) — prefers easier formats such as recognition and, for nouns, image based
- Building — leans toward production and cloze
- Mastery (higher stability) — prefers listening cards when available
For character words, review always uses a character flashcard (sound, class, or mnemonic), preferring the aspect least recently reviewed.
Listening cards
Listening recognition and listening production play the prompt with text-to-speech during review. You hear the audio first, then reveal the answer. Use Play again if you need another listen.
Image cards
On the word detail page, open an image based flashcard and use Add image (or Replace) to search Unsplash and choose a photo. Photos are hotlinked from Unsplash with photographer attribution. If no image is chosen yet, review still works using the written scene description as the prompt.
Character cards
Languages with a script library can import characters as a special word type. Each character gets up to three flashcards: sound, class (when the script uses classes), and mnemonic (when a mnemonic is defined). These appear in review like other words, but always use character card types.
Manual card creation
You can create any of the nine types manually. On the word detail page, click Add Flashcard, choose a type from the dropdown, and fill in the prompt and answer fields. This is useful for a custom cloze sentence, a personal mnemonic-style prompt, or any content the AI did not generate.
Editing and deleting flashcards
Click the edit icon on any flashcard within the word detail page to change its prompt, answer, or type. Click the delete icon to remove it permanently. Deleting a flashcard also removes its review history.