---
title: "Generated Anki decks"
url: "https://github.com/mas-4/minimalpairs"
featureImage: "/projects/anki.jpg"
short: "anki"
category: "automation"
ai: ""
order: "21"
year: "2019"
tags: ["python", "ibm watson", "beautifulsoup4"]
---
Learning French from English is sometimes tricky. Especially with recognizing
the difference between certain words, like au-dessous vs au-dessus (below vs
above). So I decided to generate an Anki deck with audio files pulled from
forvo.com's API that are distinguishable by a single phoneme (the ones I find
myself distinguishing). To read my process, please see the README in the [Github
repository][5].
The other deck, [the numbers deck][6], consists of 2500 audio files generated
through IBM Cloud's text to speech generator. It is the first 2500 numbers in
French with their corresponding words and numerical representation. It is
sometimes hard to understand French numbers because it uses a mixed
decima/vigesimal system (seventy is sixty-and-ten, eighty is four-twenties, and
ninety is four-twenties-and-ten).
These projects are simple, but I am proud of them. I seem to have helped a lot
of people learning French with them.
The minimal pairs deck, in particular, required a lot of strategizing for
dealing with the forvo.com api rate limits (500 requests per day) and the
combinatorial explosion of comparing minimal pairs.
- Generated an [Anki deck][0] for recognizing phonemes difficult to hear for an
American English speaker using “[minimal pairs][1],” words in French which
differ by only one phoneme using the forvo.com api. Almost 600 downloads and
3 positive reviews.
- Also generated an [Anki deck][4] for training the ear to hear difficult French
numbers (which use a mixed vigesimal, or base-20, system) using IBM Cloud's
Text to Speech renderer and the num2words Python library. Over 500 downloads
and 3 positive reviews.
- Used [Requests][2] for automated downloading of the audio files
- Used [BeautifulSoup4][3], requests for scraping the list of minimal pairs in
an IPython session
[0]: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1347940877
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_pair
[2]: https://requests.readthedocs.io/en/master/
[3]: https://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/
[4]: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1704367316
[5]: https://github.com/mas-4/minimalpairs
[6]: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1704367316
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<sky-block name="title">${frontmatter.title} · </sky-block>
<sky-block name="content">
<article class="project">
<a class="back" href="/projects">← all projects</a>
<p class="pills"><span class="pill">${frontmatter.category}</span><span class="pill pill-ai">${frontmatter.ai}</span><span class="year">${frontmatter.year}</span></p>
<h1>${frontmatter.title}</h1>
<a class="visit" href="${frontmatter.url}">${frontmatter.url}</a>
<img class="feature" src="${frontmatter.featureImage}" alt="" />
<div class="markdown">
<sky-slot name="content" />
</div>
</article>
</sky-block>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<script><sky-include path="theme.js" /></script>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
<title><sky-slot name="title" />${meta.title}</title>
<meta name="description" content="${meta.description}" />
<meta name="theme-color" content="#142420" />
<link rel="icon" href="/favicon.svg" type="image/svg+xml" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/style.css" />
</head>
<body>
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<label for="xray" class="curl" title="Lift the page to see what it's made of" aria-hidden="true"></label>
<label for="xray" class="sheet-cover" title="Back to the page"></label>
<sky-include path="_nav.html" />
<main class="page">
<sky-slot name="content" />
</main>
<sky-include path="_footer.html" />
</div>
<aside class="ground" aria-label="The source of this page">
<header class="ground-head">
<p>
<a href="https://github.com/mas-4/skyblue">skyblue</a> built this
page from these files, in the order it used them.
</p>
<label for="xray" class="ground-close">back to the page →</label>
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// The light switch. Until it's flipped, the page follows the system's
// light or dark preference (that part is CSS). Flipping it picks the other
// one and remembers it. This runs in <head>, so a saved choice applies
// before the page is drawn.
(() => {
const root = document.documentElement;
const system = matchMedia("(prefers-color-scheme: dark)");
try {
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try {
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show();
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<header class="site-header">
<nav class="nav">
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<path d="M2 20c4 0 4-3 7-3s3 3 7 3 4-3 7-3 3 3 7 3" />
</svg>
${meta.title}
</a>
<div class="nav-links">
<a href="/">home</a>
<a href="/about">about</a>
<a href="/projects">projects</a>
<a href="/orbits">orbits</a>
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</a>
</div>
<!-- skyblue fills these in as it builds the site. -->
<pre class="receipt" aria-label="How this page was built"><span class="prompt">$</span> skyblue --version
skyblue <a href="https://github.com/mas-4/skyblue">${sky.version}</a> (compiled by cprime <a href="https://github.com/mas-4/cprime">${sky.compiler}</a>)
<span class="prompt">$</span> skyblue -i src -o build
skyblue: ${sky.pages} pages and ${sky.files} files -> build
<span class="note"># ${sky.date}, ${sky.time}, ${sky.ms} ms. Two small scripts: the candle and the light switch.</span></pre>
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</footer>
// The candle. Hold the pointer over the words and a flame lights above
// them: the paper warms and thins, and the page's source shows through
// from underneath. Only over the letters themselves, not blank paper.
// Without this script the paper simply stays opaque.
(() => {
const sheet = document.querySelector(".sheet");
if (!sheet || !matchMedia("(hover: hover) and (pointer: fine)").matches) return;
// Is (x, y) on a letter? Find the text position under the point, then
// check that the point is inside the box of the character on either side.
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let node, offset;
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if (r) [node, offset] = [r.startContainer, r.startOffset];
}
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for (const i of [offset - 1, offset]) {
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range.setStart(node, i);
range.setEnd(node, i + 1);
for (const box of range.getClientRects())
if (x >= box.left && x <= box.right && y >= box.top && y <= box.bottom) return true;
}
return false;
};
let x = 0, y = 0, queued = false, dousing = 0;
const draw = () => {
queued = false;
const box = sheet.getBoundingClientRect();
sheet.style.setProperty("--cx", x - box.left + "px");
sheet.style.setProperty("--cy", y - box.top + "px");
if (overGlyph(x, y)) {
clearTimeout(dousing);
dousing = 0;
sheet.classList.add("lit");
} else if (!dousing && sheet.classList.contains("lit")) {
// A moment's grace, so it doesn't strobe across the spaces between words
dousing = setTimeout(() => {
sheet.classList.remove("lit");
dousing = 0;
}, 350);
}
};
sheet.addEventListener("pointermove", (e) => {
[x, y] = [e.clientX, e.clientY];
if (!queued) {
queued = true;
requestAnimationFrame(draw);
}
});
sheet.addEventListener("pointerleave", () => {
clearTimeout(dousing);
dousing = 0;
sheet.classList.remove("lit");
});
})();
<section class="source">
<header class="source-head">
<a href="https://github.com/mas-4/standingwater-flat/blob/main/src/${source.path}">${source.path}</a>
<span>${source.lines} lines</span>
</header>
<pre class="listing"><code>${source.code}</code></pre>
</section>
<pre class="listing"><code>${source.code}</code></pre>
