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Maimiao Word Cards｜Product walkthrough

1. Meet Leizi: what I am building

I'm Leizi, an independent developer running a one-person company. For the past five years, I've been building Maimiao Word Cards, which has served more than 100,000 teachers, parents and students.

Maimiao Word Cards is a custom vocabulary-card tool. You can organise what you are teaching or learning into cards, then arrange practice and review.

If you are a teacher, you can turn your current textbooks, word lists or handouts into cards, share them with students, and come back to see completion and answers.

If you are a parent, you can start with your child's textbook, exam list or material from a teacher. Prepare the words to review today, accompany your child through the practice, and then see what still needs work.

If you are learning on your own, you can keep the words you meet in an exam, at work or while reading, build your own vocabulary, and study and review at your own pace.

The three uses look different, but they start in the same place: keep the words you really need and turn them into content you can practise.

I'll start with the teacher workflow because it shows the complete path: make the cards, send them to students, and review the learning feedback. Parents and independent learners can begin with the card-making and learning parts that follow.

2. The product idea: from your word cards to class tasks and learning feedback

When I talk with teachers, I often hear a very specific request: can I create a class, make my own word cards, assign a task to students, and then check how each student is doing?

Maimiao breaks this into four steps: prepare the cards, organise the students, assign the task, and come back to review the results.

Teachers first organise textbook vocabulary, lesson words, reading words, or a group that needs more practice into a card set. Then they create a learning group and invite their students.

Simply put, the card set decides what to teach, and the learning group decides who will learn it.

The teacher can then publish the set as a learning task: recognition followed by dictation, for example, or a plan spread across several days.

Once students begin, the teacher can return to the task to see who has finished, who is still working, and review the actual practice records and answers.

I'll start with the cards and show how a word set is made.

3. Create content: from creating a deck to completing each card

First, I create a deck. A deck is a set of word cards kept together. I give it a name, then choose the languages for the word and the definition.

Once the deck is ready, I can add cards directly. Each card starts with a word and a definition. Pronunciation, phrases, examples or other reminders can go into the additional fields.

The word and definition can be edited directly. Key text can also be made bold, underlined, recoloured or highlighted.

Cards can also have images. If I do not want to find them one by one, I can use “add images from library” on the deck page to find candidates for cards that do not have images yet.

The candidate page shows the word and its definitions together. I check that the image expresses the same meaning as the card before applying it. Unsuitable candidates can be skipped, and I can upload my own image when needed.

If I want to find images separately, I can open the Maimiao word image library. It is an independent image resource page where I can search by word or definition.

Audio can be handled separately as well. The word and definition audio can each be generated by the system. If I want to use my own voice, I can record it directly or upload an MP3. When generating audio, I can choose a voice and listen to the result before confirming it.

When there are many words, I can import them in bulk. For this walkthrough, I am using the “小升初英语1000词” word list.

Excel does not require a fixed number or order of columns. The minimum is “word” and “definition”; you can also add “unit”, “pronunciation”, “example” or “notes”. An existing Excel file does not need to be reshaped into a fixed template. If you are starting from scratch, you can download the template in the import screen. When filling in the template, the first row contains the headers and each following row becomes one card.

If one file contains several units, you can keep a “unit” column or use different worksheets. Maimiao will identify these groups; after importing, you can review them and choose whether to create separate decks or keep them together.

Importing is not the final step. I first check what each column was mapped to and edit anything that needs changing. Then I confirm the deck name, languages and card content before saving.

After saving, I check the content from the card itself: the text, image and audio. Once everything is correct, the deck is ready to share or assign.

4. Arrange learning: from sharing a deck to publishing a task

Once the cards are ready, a teacher can send the deck directly to students or turn it into a learning task.

If I simply want students to get familiar with the words, I can share the deck. Students open the link and learn at their own pace.

If this session has a clear scope and requirement, I create a task. For example, recognition followed by dictation; I can configure the exercises as needed, with options such as dictation, matching and quizzes.

The task can also have a completion time, so students know what they are expected to finish.

If the content should be learned over several days, I create a multi-day plan and distribute it across the days.

That vocabulary list has quite a lot of content. I can assign a portion each day and continue from there. The amount depends on the students' starting point and the teaching plan.

A deck is useful for sharing a set of content and reviewing independent deck learning; a task is useful for defining one learning assignment. The same deck can be reused in later tasks without being created again.

5. The student experience: from opening a task to completing practice

Next, let's look at the student side. Students can open it from the WeChat mini-program or use the web app.

Once the task is open, students can see what they are learning and which exercises they need to complete.

In recognition, students first try to recall the word, then reveal the definition, listen to the pronunciation and report how familiar it feels.

Matching asks students to pair each word with its definition.

In dictation, students listen to the pronunciation and write the word. Recognising a word and being able to spell it are not the same thing.

If another check is useful, the teacher can also add a quiz.

All of these exercises use the same vocabulary. The teacher can choose what fits the learning goal; there is no need to include every mode.

When the task is finished, a learning record is saved. Students can look back at their learning and return to review later.

Learning a word once does not mean it will still be there a few days later. Review gives students another chance to practise it.

6. Review results: how teachers follow up

If students started from the deck directly, I return to My decks and open Independent learning progress (自主学习学情) for that deck. I first see the current learners, then open one learner to review the last seven days, the latest completed result for each mode, and the completed sessions.

Deck progress includes direct practice and personal learning plans, but not task learning. Sessions that are still in progress or were closed before completion are not counted. Opening a completed session shows the words and word-level results.

If students completed a task I assigned, I return to the teacher side and open that task report to see each student's completion status.

If I need more detail, I open a student's learning record to see which exercises they completed and how they answered.

The task report shows the overall result for this task. The learning record takes me into a specific practice session, and a multi-day plan has its own report. Deck progress and task progress are separate; independent deck practice cannot replace task completion.

These results are not only about a score. They help the teacher decide what to do next. If someone has not finished, I can remind them or find out why. If a dictation session went badly, I can assign those words again.

Completing a task only tells us that this round was done. Whether the words are still remembered later needs further review and practice.

7. Other uses: learning with a child or keeping your own vocabulary notebook

The complete workflow I just showed was the teacher's use case. Parents and independent learners do not have to follow every step.

Parents can start with a few words their child kept getting wrong this week, make a deck and practise them together. When new words need review, they can add those later.

The same applies to learning on your own. If you meet a word while reading and want to keep it, add it to your deck, write the explanation you need, and return to study and review it.

Teachers use learning groups, tasks and feedback. Parents and independent learners can start with making cards, learning and reviewing.

Whether it is a class, home review or your own vocabulary notebook, you can start with the few words you actually need right now.

8. Back to Leizi: how I want to keep building

Maimiao is currently developed and maintained mainly by me. I also use AI during development to research, write code and test ideas.

But every feature still has to return to a real use case: can the teacher prepare the content, can the student learn it smoothly, and can the teacher understand the result afterwards?

To me, a product is not about having as many features as possible. It is about leaving fewer breaks between preparing content and seeing learning feedback.

I will keep sharing how to use Maimiao, why I build particular features, the problems I encounter developing with AI, and what it is like to keep building a product on my own.

If you would like to try it, choose a few words you are currently teaching or learning, make a deck and go through it yourself. If you are a teacher, you can also send it to one student for a first try.

If something feels awkward, or you have a particular teaching scenario or need, tell me directly. I will do my best to help.

I'm Leizi, the developer of Maimiao Word Cards. I hope Maimiao helps you practise the words you want to teach and learn.

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