西红柿A companion app
for Anki*

Learn Chinese with your own Anki: add words in seconds, read short stories made from the words you're learning, and see your study habits.

Translations in English, Deutsch, Español, Italiano, Français or Português
Runs in your browser: Chrome, Brave or Firefox

Get started →Add a word →

or read a sample story →

Runs in your browser: Chrome, Brave or Firefox

Hi, I'm Klaus 👋 I built xihongshi for my own Chinese studies. It has been a work in progress for almost a year: I use it every day and have kept improving it to fit exactly how I learn. Now I'm sharing it, so if something is unclear or doesn't work for you, please tell me. xihongshi is free; if it helps you, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi.

xihongshi (西红柿, "tomato") is a website that works together with Anki, the free flashcard app. You keep studying your cards in Anki as usual; xihongshi helps you fill and use your deck

Add a word Word → AnkiType a Chinese word, get a finished flashcard: pinyin, meaning, similar words, example sentences with translations, and audio for everything.
Stories Anki → StoryShort stories from the words in your deck, plus a few new ones you want to learn, so you meet them in context first. With pinyin, translation and audio.
WordsA clear overview of your decks, by HSK level. Click a word for its card with audio, meaning and examples, or search in characters, pinyin or meaning.
HabitsHow much and when you study, and your streak, straight from Anki's review history. See your best hours of the day, and log offline study time too.

Hi, I’m Klaus 👋
I built xihongshi for my own Chinese and use it every day. It works with Anki, the free flashcard app: you keep studying your cards there, and xihongshi fills your deck and writes stories from it. xihongshi is free; if it helps you, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi.

xihongshi (西红柿, "tomato") is a website that works together with Anki, the free flashcard app. You keep studying your cards in Anki as usual; xihongshi helps you fill and use your deck

Add a word Word → AnkiType a Chinese word, get a finished flashcard: pinyin, meaning, similar words, example sentences with translations, and audio for everything.
Stories Anki → StoryShort stories from the words in your deck, plus a few new ones you want to learn, so you meet them in context first. With pinyin, translation and audio.
WordsA clear overview of your decks, by HSK level. Click a word for its card with audio, meaning and examples, or search in characters, pinyin or meaning.
HabitsHow much and when you study, and your streak, straight from Anki's review history. See your best hours of the day, and log offline study time too.

Why Anki: the part that makes words stick

xihongshi fills your deck; Anki makes sure you never forget what's in it. Anki uses spaced repetition: it shows you each card again right before you'd forget it, a day later, then a few days, then weeks and months. A few minutes of reviews a day keep hundreds or thousands of words fresh.

Every word gets studied Each one you add becomes two cards: Chinese → meaning (with the example sentences) and meaning → Chinese, both with audio. Anki works them into your daily study by itself (new cards are introduced gradually, up to 20 a day by default), with no extra effort.
Review anywhere Sync your collection for free with AnkiWeb and do your daily reviews on your phone with AnkiDroid (Android, free) or AnkiMobile (iPhone, paid). xihongshi is for adding and reading on your computer; reviewing works wherever you are.
Reading boosts reviewing Stories are written around the words you're learning, so you meet your cards again in real context. Red-flag a card you keep getting wrong and it shows up in your next story.
Your progress is visible Anki's statistics and xihongshi's Habits page both build on your review history: streaks, study time, best hours.

How your decks are organised

Words live in Mandarin: Vocabulary::HSK1, …::HSK2 and so on (the starter deck creates the first one). New words go into the one you created most recently: ready for the next level, create Mandarin: Vocabulary::HSK2 in Anki (Create Deck).
Stories pick words from your HSK decks. Flag a card red in Anki (Ctrl/Cmd + 1 while reviewing) and it comes up in stories first.
New words to learn (on the story page): pick a deck of words you haven't learned yet, like a backlog. Each story brings in a few of them (about one per 50 words), so you meet them in context first. Click one to add it to Anki, and, if you like, remove it from that deck.
Story options (on the story page): which decks to use, all words or only recent ones or those you often get wrong, which flag colours count, an optional topic, and how simple the other words in the story are.
While reading a story: select a phrase to save it as a highlight, or a word to add it to Anki. P pinyin, T translation, Space play/pause, ← → jump 3 seconds.
Stories and highlights are saved in Mandarin: Stories and Mandarin: Highlights, to review in Anki like any deck.

Costs

xihongshi itself is free. AI providers bill you directly, by usage. Rough figures:

Action	Roughly
Add a word (text)	well under 1 cent
Generate a 150-word story	a few cents
Audio with ElevenLabs	counts characters against your ElevenLabs plan (a word with its 4 example sentences ≈ 50–80 characters)
Audio without a key	free

Set a monthly spending limit with your provider and you can't be surprised.

Troubleshooting

"Anki not connected" or "Could not reach AnkiConnect"

Is Anki open? Is AnkiConnect installed, and did you restart Anki afterwards?
Clicked Block when Chrome asked about local network access? Paste chrome://settings/content/siteDetails?site=https://www.xihongshi.app into Chrome's address bar, set Apps on device (and Local network access) to Allow, reload and click Connect to Anki again.
Clicked No in Anki? Just click Connect to Anki again; Anki asks again.
Using Safari? Please use Chrome, Brave or Firefox; Safari doesn't let websites reach apps on your computer.

"Model "Chinese (Basic)" not found" when adding a word

Import the starter deck (setup step 4); it installs that card type.

"No vocabulary found in your Anki decks" when generating a story

You need at least a few words in a Mandarin: Vocabulary::HSK… deck. The starter deck has 150.

"No AI key found"

Add an Anthropic or OpenAI key on the Setup page and click Check key.

My keys are gone

Keys are saved per browser. On another computer or browser, enter them again on the Setup page.

Audio says voice_not_found

The ElevenLabs voice ID isn't available to your account. Pick a voice in the ElevenLabs Voice Library, add it to "My Voices", or clear the Voice ID field to use the default voice.

Questions, ideas or feedback?

I'd love to hear from you: mail(at)klausstille.com.

Already an Anki user?

xihongshi works with your existing collection through the AnkiConnect add-on. No new account, no export.
It leaves your cards alone. It only adds its own notes (in Mandarin: Vocabulary::HSK…, Mandarin: Stories and Mandarin: Highlights) and only ever changes notes it created. Your other decks and your review scheduling are never touched. The one exception is your choice: adding a word from your New words to learn deck can also remove it from there, if you switch that on.
New words use a "Chinese (Basic)" note type: pinyin, definition, similar words, four example sentences with translations and audio. The starter deck installs it.
It reads your review history for the Habits page and your red flags for stories. Apart from the words sent to your AI provider for stories and new cards, nothing leaves your computer (see Privacy).

Setup (~15 minutes, once)

1Install Anki

Download Anki for your computer from https://apps.ankiweb.net and open it. If you already use Anki, you can use your existing profile.

2Install AnkiConnect

AnkiConnect lets the website talk to Anki on your computer.

In Anki: Tools → Add-ons → Get Add-ons…
Enter the code 2055492159 and click OK.
Restart Anki.

3Connect the website to Anki

Keep Anki open and go to https://www.xihongshi.app/setup.
Click Connect to Anki.
Chrome (or Brave) asks whether the site may access apps on this device or your local network: click Allow. (That's how the page reaches Anki on your computer; nothing goes over the internet.) Firefox works too.
Anki asks whether https://www.xihongshi.app may use AnkiConnect: click Yes.

You should see "Connected to Anki ✓ … decks found". Clicked "Block" or "No" by accident? See Troubleshooting.

4Starter deck (recommended)

On the Setup page, click Download HSK1 deck, then in Anki choose File → Import… and pick the downloaded file.

You get 150 HSK1 words, each with pinyin, definition, four example sentences, translations and audio. It also installs the card type that "Add a word" needs, so import it even if you already have your own decks.

5Add an AI key

xihongshi uses AI to write example sentences and stories. You use your own account, so you only pay for what you use (see Costs).

Create an account at https://console.anthropic.com, add a little credit (e.g. $5) under Billing, and set a monthly spending limit there.
Under API Keys, create a key and copy it (it starts with sk-ant-).
Paste it into Anthropic (Claude) API key on the Setup page. It's saved as you paste it; click Check key to make sure it works.

Already have an OpenAI account? An OpenAI key works instead of Anthropic.

Below the keys, under Translations, pick the language for meanings and translations: English, Deutsch, Español, Italiano, Français or Português.

6Audio (optional)

Audio works without any key, using a free but slightly robotic voice. For a natural voice, add an ElevenLabs key (https://elevenlabs.io) on the Setup page. You can even pick a different voice or clone your own: paste its Voice ID under Voice and click Listen to hear it.

7Add words from any website (optional)

Drag the ➕ xihongshi button from the Setup page onto your bookmarks bar; then select a word on any website and click it to add the word with its sentence.

That's it. Start with Word → Anki or Anki → Story in the menu; 西红柿 at the top left brings you back to this guide.

Privacy

Your Anki stays on your computer. The website talks to Anki directly from your browser. Your cards never go to the xihongshi server, and other visitors can only ever reach their own Anki.
What leaves your computer: only the word you add, or the handful of words picked for a story (and, for a new word whose note has no meaning, that word and its sentence), sent to your AI provider with your key.
Your keys are saved in your browser only and sent along with each request. They are never stored on the server.
Anonymous visitor statistics: the site counts page views with Vercel Web Analytics (no cookies, no personal data), so I can see which pages are used. Nothing from your Anki is ever part of it.
Usage counts: per day, the site counts how many stories are written and words added: just those numbers, nothing about you or your words.
Your logged study time is stored as a small file inside your Anki (_xihongshi_habits.json), so it's backed up and synced with your cards.
Saying "Yes" in Anki lets this site read and edit your Anki while you use it. To take that back: Anki → Tools → Add-ons → AnkiConnect → Config, remove the site from webCorsOriginList.