flashgen

Automatically create Japanese Anki flashcards with AI-generated audio — directly from a ChatGPT conversation.

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What it does

flashgen takes a Japanese phrase (or English — it auto-translates), generates a natural-sounding MP3 using OpenAI's text-to-speech API, and creates an Anki flashcard with audio in your deck — all in one command.

It communicates with the locally-running Anki application via the AnkiConnect add-on and produces two cards per note:

• Listening card — plays the audio and asks 何を言っていますか？; the answer reveals the Japanese text, English translation, and notes.
• Production card — shows the English prompt; the answer reveals the Japanese text, plays the audio, and shows notes.

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Why it was created

ChatGPT has the best real-time voice for practicing spoken Japanese. The old workflow was:

1. Have a conversation with ChatGPT
2. Hear a useful phrase
3. Manually record it with Quicktime
4. Create an Anki card by hand

This tool eliminates steps 3 and 4. You copy the JSON that ChatGPT outputs, run jpflash, and the card — complete with audio — appears in Anki.

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Prerequisites

• Python > 3.9 (versions 3.9 and below cause deprecation warnings)
• Anki desktop app installed and running
• AnkiConnect add-on installed in Anki (add-on code: 2055492159)
• An OpenAI API key with access to TTS and chat models
• macOS (the jpflash alias uses pbpaste; Linux/Windows users can adapt it)

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Installation

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/flashgen.git
cd flashgen

2. Create a virtual environment and install dependencies

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Set your OpenAI API key

Add this to your ~/.zshrc (or ~/.bashrc):

export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..."

4. Configure flashgen

Open flashgen.py and update the constants at the top of the file to match your Anki setup:

DECK_NAME  = "日本語-Soso"                    # Your Anki deck name
MODEL_NAME = "Japanese Listening+Production"  # Your note type name (see Anki Setup below)

You can also adjust the TTS voice, models, and default tags here.

5. Add the jpflash alias to ~/.zshrc

alias jpflash='pbpaste | /path/to/flashgen/.venv/bin/python /path/to/flashgen/flashgen.py'

Replace /path/to/flashgen with the actual path where you cloned the repo — for example:

alias jpflash='pbpaste | /Users/yourname/ML/flashgen/.venv/bin/python /Users/yourname/ML/flashgen/flashgen.py'

Then reload your shell:

source ~/.zshrc

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Anki Setup

You need to create a Note Type with the exact name and fields that flashgen expects.

Create the Note Type

1. Open Anki → Tools → Manage Note Types
2. Click Add → Add: Basic → name it exactly: Japanese Listening+Production
3. Click Fields and create these four fields in order:
   • Japanese
   • English
   • Notes
   • Audio

Add Card Templates

Still in the Note Type editor, click Cards and set up two templates:

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Card 1 — Listening (audio prompt → text answer)

Front Template:

<div>何を言っていますか？</div>
<br>
<div>{{Audio}}</div>

Back Template:

{{FrontSide}}

<hr id=answer>

<div style="font-size: 1.4em;">{{Japanese}}</div>
<br>
<div>{{English}}</div>
<br>
{{#Notes}}
<div style="margin-top: 12px; color: #666; font-size: 18px;">
  {{Notes}}
</div>
{{/Notes}}

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Card 2 — Production (English prompt → Japanese answer)

Click Add Card to create a second template.

Front Template:

<div>{{English}}</div>

Back Template:

{{FrontSide}}

<hr id=answer>

<div style="font-size: 1.4em;">{{Japanese}}</div>
<br>
<div>{{Audio}}</div>
{{#Notes}}
<div style="margin-top: 12px; color: #666; font-size: 18px;">
  {{Notes}}
</div>
{{/Notes}}

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How to use with ChatGPT

Step 1 — Load the system prompt

Open chatgpt_prompt.md, copy the prompt block, and paste it into a new ChatGPT conversation. You can ask ChatGPT to remember it for future sessions:

"Please remember this flashcard prompt for our future conversations."

Step 2 — Practice Japanese

Have a conversation with ChatGPT in voice or text mode. ChatGPT's Japanese voice is excellent for pronunciation modeling.

Step 3 — Request a flashcard

When you hear or see a phrase you want to learn, say:

"Please make a flashcard for that sentence."

You can give the phrase in English or Japanese — ChatGPT will fill in the other language automatically. You can also ask it to add notes for specific words:

"Flashcard for that sentence, and add a definition for 抑える."

ChatGPT will output a JSON object like:

{
  "japanese": "彼はやっとのことで怒りを抑えた。",
  "english": "He finally managed to hold back his anger.",
  "notes": "やっとのことで: barely, with great effort\n抑える（おさえる）: to hold back, to suppress",
  "tags": ["auto", "jp", "conversation"]
}

Important: Anki must be open and running on the same computer where flashgen is running. AnkiConnect only listens locally on 127.0.0.1:8765.

Step 4 — Create the card

Copy the JSON output (Cmd+C), switch to your terminal, and run:

jpflash

The card appears in Anki immediately, complete with TTS audio.

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Input / Output reference

Input (JSON via stdin)

{
  "japanese": "string (optional — auto-translated from english if omitted)",
  "english":  "string (optional — auto-translated from japanese if omitted)",
  "notes":    "string (optional)",
  "tags":     ["list", "of", "tags"]
}

At least one of japanese or english is required.

Output (JSON to stdout)

{
  "status":           "ok",
  "note_id":          12345,
  "deck":             "日本語-Soso",
  "model":            "Japanese Listening+Production",
  "japanese":         "...",
  "english":          "...",
  "notes":            "...",
  "tags":             ["..."],
  "audio_file":       "filename.mp3",
  "local_audio_path": "anki_audio_out/filename.mp3"
}

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License

MIT