Siksai Deck - learn Taiwanese with flashcards
Siksai Deck - learn Taiwanese with flashcards
Siksai Deck is a flashcard app for Taiwanese (台語), built around spaced repetition so the words you learn actually stay learned.
Build your own deck, review a little each day, and let the app decide what to show you and when. Thousands of Taiwanese words come with real recorded audio built in, no setup and no internet needed.
There is no account, no subscription and no login. Your cards live on your device.
Optional AI features: dictionary lookup, asking a teacher, and drafting cards from a topic, a photo or a voice note. Work with your own Google (Gemini) or OpenAI key. Everything else works without one.
Last updated: 2026/09/21
Siksai Deck does not collect, store, or share any personal information.
There is no account to create, no server to sync with, no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising identifier, and no third-party SDKs of any kind in the app.
What stays on your device
Your flashcards (the text, romanization, tags, mnemonics, and any photos you attach to a card) are stored only on your device, along with any audio you record, your review history and statistics, and your settings.
Data Handling: None of this is transmitted anywhere. If you delete the app, it is gone. The Export feature exists so you can keep your own backup.
The optional AI features
The app's AI features only work if you enter your own API key from Google (Gemini) or OpenAI. Nothing is sent anywhere until you do that and accept the notice the app shows before its first AI request.
Purpose: To look up words, answer your questions about Taiwanese, and draft flashcards for you.
Data Handling: When you use one of these features, the relevant text is sent to the provider you chose, using your API key and your account with them. The developer of this app does not receive it, store it, or have any way of accessing it. What is sent is the word you look up, the messages you type, what you describe when creating cards, and (only if you turn that option on) a list of your recent cards as context.
Photos
Purpose: You can add a photo when creating cards with AI, so the app can turn text in the photo into flashcards.
Data Handling: Your photos are never sent anywhere. The text is read out of the image on your own device using Apple's built-in Vision framework, and only that extracted text is transmitted to the AI provider. The image itself never leaves your phone.
Microphone and recorded audio
Purpose: To record your own pronunciation onto a card, and (if you choose so) to have a voice note transcribed when creating cards with AI.
Data Handling: Audio you record onto a card stays on your device. Audio you submit for transcription is sent to OpenAI for that purpose. This is the only file the app ever uploads.
Your API keys
Purpose: To let the optional AI features work under your own account.
Data Handling: Keys are stored in the iOS keychain on your device, marked so they can only be read after you have unlocked the device and are never carried to another device by a backup. A key is sent only to the provider it belongs to, as part of the request you asked for. You can remove a key at any time by clearing the field in Settings.
Third parties
Requests from the AI features go to Google or OpenAI, depending on which key you entered. Their handling of that data is governed by their own terms:
Google Gemini API terms: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/terms
OpenAI privacy policy: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy
Worth knowing if you use a free Google key: Google states that the paid tier is what guarantees your prompts and responses are not used to improve Google's products. On the free tier, they may be. If that matters to you, enable billing with Google, or use the app without AI. Everything except the AI features works with no key at all.
Children
The app is not directed at children and collects nothing from anyone. The optional AI features require an API key, which requires an account with Google or OpenAI under their own age requirements.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the date at the top of this page changes with it.
Credits
The Taiwanese audio and dictionary data in Siksai Deck comes from the Ministry of Education, Taiwan (教育部臺灣台語常用詞辭典), used under CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, mirrored by ChhoeTaigi. It is bundled with the app and needs no network access.
Support
Questions, bug reports and suggestions are welcome.
Email: francoyy@gmail.com
A few things that come up often:
Backing up your cards. Open View Cards and use Export. That gives you a file containing your whole deck and its audio, which you can keep anywhere and import again later.
Moving to a new phone. Export from the old device, then Import on the new one.
The AI features ask for a key. They are optional and use your own API key from Google or OpenAI, so that any usage is billed to your own account rather than bundled into the app's price. Training, making your own cards, the built-in audio, romanization, search, statistics and import/export all work without one.
Deleting your data. There is no account and no server, so there is nothing held anywhere to delete. Removing the app removes everything with it.