French Anki Decks: Learn Vocabulary in Context

Before importing a French Anki deck, inspect a few cards. Can you understand each question, explain its answer and see how the expression works? A huge deck is only helpful if the individual cards fit the French you are learning.

For reading vocabulary, a useful starting format is a French sentence with one marked expression on the front and its contextual meaning on the back. This guide provides an original downloadable set, an exact field map and a way to adapt it as you read.

Download an original French sentence starter set

Get the French story vocabulary TSV, or inspect the same material in the printable PDF. The sentences come from three complete LingoReader stories with approximate A1, A2 and B1 levels. Read them at the French reading practice hub.

The TSV contains 18 notes, with two plain-text fields per row and no heading row. It includes no audio, images, account data, review history or schedules. Importing it with Anki's Basic note type creates one recognition card per note. The downloaded instructions give the same mapping in a text file.

Here is the kind of question you will see. Square brackets mark a visible target; they do not hide it.

The full answers also retain sentence translations, usage notes and source credits. Begin with a story you can understand after checking its target expressions. You can suspend harder notes while trying the easier ones.

Evaluate a shared deck before committing to it

The AnkiWeb French shared-deck search is a place to compare descriptions and samples. This guide does not rank untested decks. Ratings, download counts and a large advertised vocabulary are reasons to inspect a deck, not evidence that its daily reviews will suit you.

Check the following in several notes, including some from later in the deck:

• Meaning: Does the answer match the sentence, rather than a different dictionary sense?
• Noun gender: Does a noun retain an article or an explicit gender note?
• Context: Can the sentence be understood once the target is explained?
• Task: Is the card testing recognition, production, spelling or a conjugation, and is that task clear?
• Media: If audio is promised, can you preview it and identify its source or production method?
• Setup: Does the deck need custom templates, add-ons or a separate course to make sense?

For a Canadian learning goal, check whether regional expressions are labelled and whether the examples fit the situations you care about. French from another region can still be useful, but a deck's title alone does not establish its variety or register.

If you download a packaged shared deck, use the supported app import workflow rather than expecting an AnkiWeb search result to add it directly to your web account. Anki's shared-deck instructions explain that distinction.

Choose Basic for this recognition set

Anki stores information in notes, divided into fields. A note type determines which cards it creates. Basic uses Front and Back and creates one card; Basic (and reversed card) creates a second card in the opposite direction. See the official note-type explanation.

The starter set belongs in Basic. Its front is already a question, and its back includes more than an English cue. Reversing the fields would make the entire detailed answer a prompt. That would be a different, less clear task.

If you later want production practice, write a separate prompt. “Ask a friend to save you a seat, using garder” makes the intended expression clear. An answer such as Garde-moi une place can then be judged against that request.

Import the TSV on desktop Anki

TSV means tab-separated values. Download the file as supplied and keep UTF-8 encoding so accents and French apostrophes survive. A spreadsheet may display it in columns, but you do not need to resave it before importing.

1. Create a deck such as French Reading, then open the TSV through File → Import.
2. Select Basic, your destination deck and Tab as the separator.
3. Map column 1 to Front and column 2 to Back. Leave HTML processing off because this sample is plain text.
4. Check the preview: the French question should be in the first field and the complete answer in the second.
5. Import, then inspect several notes in Browse before introducing new cards into regular study.

These steps follow Anki's text-import documentation. Interface wording can vary by version; use the preview to confirm the separator, note type and destination rather than clicking through from memory.

If both fields appear in one column, check that Tab is selected. If accents look damaged, return to the original UTF-8 download. If you see an empty front, stop and inspect the field mapping. The supplied file has no column headings that should become a vocabulary card.

Decide what reimporting should do

Anki can match text-file notes using the first field and update existing notes. Its import screen also lets you ignore duplicates or import them as new notes. Check the match scope and duplicate handling before importing the same file again. Official duplicate guidance

For a trial, ignoring existing matches avoids adding another copy or replacing your edited answer. If you deliberately want updated answers, inspect the match settings first. Changing a question's wording can change whether Anki recognises it as an existing note.

Keep a copy of your own edits before experimenting with a large import. The downloaded starter file is small enough to inspect row by row; a large shared deck may need more careful checking.

Use Cloze only for a missing-expression task

The starter TSV has visible bracketed targets and no Anki cloze syntax. To make a cloze question, create a separate Cloze note and explicitly mark what should disappear. Here is an original grammar example:

Nora {{c1::attend::attendre, present tense}} son bus.

The subject and hint identify the verb form. Put “Nora is waiting for her bus” and a note that attendre takes a direct object here in Extra. Follow Anki's cloze instructions when creating these notes.

A cloze without enough information can have several possible answers. Nora ___ son bus alone might invite attend, prend or something else. Specify the verb or intended meaning if that is the task you want to test.

Export your own reading vocabulary from LingoReader

In LingoReader, open a flashcard deck, select cards, choose Export, then Anki. The export produces a TSV file. Check its preview and advanced field-order options before downloading. LingoReader's export help

Map the exported columns according to their actual contents. Your custom export may have more fields than the two-column starter set. A visible sentence plus a meaning fits Basic; a field with Anki cloze markup needs a compatible Cloze note type.

This is a manual file export. LingoReader and Anki do not automatically synchronise these cards, and the export does not transfer LingoReader review schedules. You can also keep reviewing in LingoReader instead of moving the file.

Let the deck support your next reading session

After your first reviews, return to a complete story and notice whether the expressions make sense there. Revise a card if its pronoun lacks a referent, its meaning is too broad or its sentence is much harder than its target. Our French flashcard guide demonstrates those repairs.

Introduce new cards at a pace that leaves time for reading. If the queue begins taking over that time, reduce new cards and set aside material you cannot yet explain. Anki's study controls include Suspend for temporarily removing a card from review.

You do not need a deck per chapter. One broad French reading deck with source or topic tags can keep the collection manageable; the Anki organisation guidance explains when decks and tags serve different purposes. The useful outcome is understanding another occurrence of French, not completing somebody else's entire new-card queue.