Snap a menu, a street sign, or a textbook page. Neurako turns what you just saw into reviewable cards — character, pinyin, gloss, and a sentence — then spaces them with FSRS. Keep Pleco for lookup and Skritter for handwriting; use Neurako so you stop building every card by hand.
Why generic vocab cards fail
mā, má, mǎ, mà, and the neutral ma are five different words. A card that only shows 马 → horse never trains the tone. Isolated character-to-pinyin flashcards fail without audio and a tone mark — attach a clip, write the mark, and review the syllable inside a sentence.
骑 is 马 (horse) plus 奇, not a random drawing that means “to ride.” A translation pair hides the composition that makes the next hundred characters easier. A useful card shows the radicals you are actually trying to remember. Capture gets the character onto the card fast; you keep the notes that make it make sense.
Most learners organize study around HSK levels. Frequency-first capture is complementary, not a replacement: use HSK to know what “level” means, and use Neurako to turn the menu, the subtitle, and the textbook page into cards you will actually review. Do not wait to finish a printed list before capturing the Chinese in front of you.
What a useful card looks like
Character card
骑
qí
to ride
Components
马 (horse) + 奇 (odd / remarkable)
Example sentence
我喜欢骑自行车。
I like riding a bicycle.
Photo capture
From a restaurant menu
宫保鸡丁
gōngbǎo jīdīng
Kung Pao chicken
A photo of a menu or a street sign is exactly where AI capture earns its keep for a character-based language. You do not retype every dish. You snap it, edit the card, and review the characters you will see again tomorrow.
Tools you already use
Neurako is the AI-capture and FSRS layer for people who already have a Chinese toolkit and do not want to hand-build every new card.
The dictionary you already open ten times a day. Look the word up in Pleco; put the word you will forget onto a Neurako card with a sentence and a review date.
Stroke-order and handwriting practice. Neurako does not teach you to write characters by hand — if that is the skill you want, keep Skritter. Use Neurako for recognition, recall, and the Chinese you meet in the wild.
Shared HSK and Chinese vocab decks are how a lot of people start. Neurako is for the next layer: the menu, the WeChat message, the subtitle — captured and scheduled with FSRS instead of typed into another note type.
Start a Chinese deck from a photo, a pasted list, or a phrase. FSRS handles the review timing. You keep the notes that make tones and radicals stick.
Not to use Neurako. Many learners get a long way with recognition, pinyin typing, and example sentences. Neurako is a capture-and-review system, not a handwriting trainer — it has no stroke-order or writing-practice feature. If you want to learn to write by hand, pair it with something built for that, such as Skritter.
Language cards can include a translation plus romanization — for Chinese, that is pinyin with tone marks — and an example sentence. You can also attach audio, which matters because a silent 马 → mǎ card never trains the tone. Edit the card if you want the mark written a specific way.
Yes. Create a deck per level, or tag a deck HSK 1 through HSK 6, if that is how you plan. Neurako does not ship an official HSK curriculum. Frequency-first capture sits next to that structure: use HSK as the map, and use Neurako for the Chinese you actually meet.
Download on iOS or Android, or keep studying in the browser—the same decks, FSRS reviews, and quiz practice, with clear Free vs Pro limits.
