Anki Vacation TTS GitHub

The phrases you'll actually use abroad.

Anki Vacation TTS builds small flashcard decks for a trip: the greetings, orders and questions locals really use, each with natural audio, IPA and a spelling you can pronounce at first sight.

Make a deck Source on GitHub

Free and open source, MIT licensed.

🇨🇳 Mandarin · say it

How much is this?

Asking the price at a market or in a shop.

Tap to flip →
🇨🇳 Mandarin · say it

多少钱？

Simple
duōshao qián?
IPA
two˥ ʂɑʊ̯ tɕʰjɛn˧˥
Literal
How much money?

Point at the item and ask. The seller often types the price into a calculator.

A real card from the Mandarin deck, translated to English. Tap it, then play the audio.

What goes into a deck

Kartla?

Phrases locals say

One best phrase per situation, in its shortest natural form, instead of "Could I pay by card, please?".

Hoş geldiniz → Hoş bulduk

Calls and responses

Fixed rituals are learned as a pair: what you hear, and what you say back.

हाँ · hã

A second opinion

Every deck is drafted, then reviewed again for stiff phrasing, wrong tones and misleading transcriptions before any audio is made.

Make a deck

You need Node.js 22, a Gemini API key for writing the deck and a key for the voice you pick (Gemini, Azure, Google or ElevenLabs). 

# once
git clone https://github.com/lorenzpfei/anki-vacation-tts.git
cd anki-vacation-tts/generator && pnpm install && cp .env.example .env

# draft and review a new deck
node generate.js new --target zh-CN --region "mainland China"

# synthesize audio and package it
node generate.js deDE-zhCN

The last step writes output/deDE-zhCN.apkg. Open it in Anki and the note type, card templates and audio are all there.

Decks in the repository

These are written for German speakers. Use --learner en-US to generate decks with English explanations.

Why flashcards

Anki asks you to recall a phrase before showing it, and schedules each card right before you would forget it. Both effects are well studied: Anki use and outcomes, spaced repetition. A trip deck of around 50 cards takes a few minutes a day over two or three weeks.