Understand your words, don’t memorise them. A forever-free flashcard system built to last.
A free, offline, and private spaced-repetition flashcard application for phone and computer that helps you collect, review and understand new vocabulary and grammar concepts. Built on years of autodidactic learning experience to be the core of your learning journey or system.
Unfinished Guide
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How to Begin using It
Euphoric Flashcards isn’t a standalone app but a plugin that runs inside Obsidian, a free note-taking app available on phone and computer. No experience with either is needed. This guide first walks you through installing Obsidian and then Euphoric Flashcards, then takes you through creating your first flashcard, organising it into a deck, and reviewing it. Along the way you’ll pick up a few tips for language learning too.
The whole thing takes about fifteen to twenty minutes. By the end, you’ll have a private, offline, forever-free flashcard system ready for any language.
Not sure yet? View the previews to decide whether this is a system worth your time.
If you’re familiar with Obsidian and just want to get a grasp of the plugin, start here or visit the marketplace or GitHub
Euphoric Flashcards Startup-Guide
This is the guide. It will walk you from start to finish. Try to actively follow it on your own device to setup your flashcards alongside it.
What are Flashcards, Spaced-Repetition, or Obsidian?
First of all, let’s clear up these common questions.
What are flashcards? A flashcard holds a word on one side, its meaning on the other. You glance at the front, try to recall the back, then check yourself. Nothing could be simpler, yet few tools rival flashcards for cementing vocabulary. Digital cards keep that simplicity while letting you review anywhere, anytime.
What is the Spaced Repetition Method? Spaced repetition is a technique for learning flashcards that schedules your card reviews by the card’s difficulty. Unfamiliar or shaky words will resurface often, while known ones fade into ever-longer intervals. It’s among the most efficient memory techniques known. This Wikipedia article outlines the psychology behind it.
What is Obsidian?
Obsidian.md is a free, private note-taking app for weaving your notes into a connected, searchable knowledge base. Its strength lies in versatility. It uses the markdown file format that allows your notes to be exportable to virtually any other. Through an open “plugin” ecosystem you can extend Obsidian’s default functions and mold it to suit whatever thing you use it for: writing, language learning, project management, publishing a website, life organisation, goal tracking, reading… this list would go on for quite another while. Obsidian is built around absolute privacy. Your notes will either be saved in your cloud or on your local filesystem.
1. Preview: What You’ll Be Able to Do
1.1 Writing Flashcard Decks
A flashcard in Euphoric Flashcards is a single line of text. It holds a word, its translation, and optionally a type, an explanation, or example sentences defined in pure text. The syntax is as simple or as extensive as you need it to be. Here I show the most minimal word -translation leading up to more sophisticated definitions.
1.2 Reviewing a Deck
Reviewing shows you one side of a card and asks you to recall the other. Reveal the answer, rate yourself, and the plugin schedules the card’s next appearance. Euphoric Flashcards shuffles your cards, asks for front- and backside, and displays all information you included when defining the card. You just have to check in every day and review or add new words. (video)
1.3 Building Sentences
Sentence Builder mode pulls a handful of words from your decks and challenges you to weave them into an applied sentence. This turns vocabulary into active use. (video)
This is the end of the preview section
Follow along the guide below to set Euphoric Flashcards up for you.
2. Getting Set Up with Obsidian
2.1 Installing Obsidian and Creating Your Vault
Download Obsidian for free from Google Play, the App Store or Obsidian.md. On first launch, create a new vault, which is simply a folder on your device where all your notes live. Give it a name and you’re ready to go.
2.2 Notes and Tags
Every note in Obsidian is a plain text file. Create one with the new note button and start typing in Markdown.
Tags mark notes with a topic, written anywhere in a note as a word preceded by a hash symbol. They are the foundation Euphoric Flashcards uses to organize your decks, more on that soon.
2.3 The Command Palette
Nearly every action in Obsidian runs through the command palette. Open it with a downward swipe around the center of the screen on mobile, or Ctrl P or Cmd P on Desktop. Type what you want to do and press enter. You will use this constantly, including to start your flashcard reviews.
2.4 Searching Your Vault
The built in search finds any word across every note in your vault. As your collection of flashcards grows, this becomes essential for locating a word you half remember writing down.
2.5 The Community Plugin Marketplace
Plugins extend what Obsidian can do. Open Settings then Community Plugins then Browse and you land in the marketplace. Search for a plugin, install it, and enable it. This is how you will get Euphoric Flashcards onto your device.
3. Writing Flashcards
3.1 Basic Card Syntax
3.2 Adding Explanations and Example Sentences
3.3 Declaring Word Types
3.4 Multiline Cards
4. Decks
4.1 Tagging Cards into a Deck
4.2 Registering a Deck in Settings
4.3 Subdecks
5. Reviewing Your Cards
5.1 Review Modes
5.2 Starting a Review
5.3 The Sentence Builder
To keep education free and accessible. For everyone. Forever.