kamishibai github ↗

Helps you remember exactly what matters to you

Generate cards in kamishibai for the words you don't understand or mispronounce. For every meaning it builds a small story with audio and packs everything into a deck for Anki — the app built around a review schedule. The heart of each story is a phrase that sets your word in the right context.

$ brew install anatoly-chichikov/tap/kamishibai

why phrases, not words

  • Black-and-white kamishibai card illustration: a café visitor reads the menu, then orders by pointing at a line.

    knowing a word is not yet being able to use it

    Recognizing a word in a text and producing it in your own speech are different skills. So kamishibai stages a scene around the word: the phrase gives it a situation, the illustration a picture, the audio a native speaker's pronunciation. You remember the whole scene — and the word along with it.

  • Black-and-white kamishibai card illustration: a woman sorts through a key ring in a hallway and finds the key by its worn teeth.

    outside a phrase, a word can mean anything

    canard has two meanings: the duck and the fabricated news story. kamishibai finds both and lets you mark which ones to learn. Every meaning you mark gets its own card and its own phrase — the senses never blur into a single translation.

  • Black-and-white kamishibai card illustration: a traveler in a snowy field places a boot into yesterday's footprint.

    every phrase you learn helps you remember the next one

    A new phrase always contains something you already know: the same articles, prepositions, turns of speech. Each new card settles onto the previous ones instead of starting from zero — new material sticks more easily, and out of these overlaps a feel for the language grows. See what this looks like on a real deck →

how kamishibai works

ai may be wrong, please verify results

what the result looks like

you get the artifacts

PDF APKG

import into Anki

how to install

Generation needs an internet connection and a Gemini API key. Reviews need Anki. Cost, data and limitations are covered in the questions and answers.

Prebuilt binaries are available for macOS, Linux and Windows.

$ brew install anatoly-chichikov/tap/kamishibai

or

$ curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anatoly-chichikov/kamishibai/main/install.sh | sh

then run:

$ kamishibai

On the first screen, pick the language you already know and enter your Gemini key — it is saved to a local settings file.

ways to work with kamishibai

  • use the terminal UI

    You launch kamishibai, paste your words, pick the meanings and review the cards in a step-by-step interface.

  • delegate to an agent

    Claude Code or another agent can drive the same process: it operates kamishibai on its own, leaving you to name the words and review the finished cards. The commands and rules for agents are described in llms.txt.

  • bring your own cards

    If the wording has to be entirely yours, describe the cards in JSON — kamishibai adds audio and illustrations and builds the deck.

more in the questions and answers →

$ brew install anatoly-chichikov/tap/kamishibai