Cambridge Dictionary Anki Add-on (English Focus Fork)

A personal fork of Cambridge Dictionary Parser for Anki (add-on #204494925), rebuilt to create clean, minimal English vocabulary cards to fit my need.

What's Different From the Original

The original add-on (#204494925) was designed for English → Russian learners. It:

• Fetches from the English-Russian Cambridge dictionary by default
• Shows the word, pronunciation, and part of speech on the front of the card
• Reveals a Russian translation on the back
• Dumps the full Cambridge HTML block (synonyms, thesaurus, SMART Vocabulary, related words) into the card

This fork changes all of that for English learners who want a clean, distraction-free card.

My Card Format

Front

thrive

Back

/θraɪv/
verb

to grow, develop, or be successful

His business thrived in the years before the war.
She seems to thrive on stress.

🔊  (US pronunciation audio)

Changes Made

cambridge.py

• Removed English-Russian URL entirely — fetches from dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ only
• Replaced full HTML block scraping with clean plain-text extraction
• Fixed get_text(separator=" ") so linked words like <a>His</a><a>business</a> render with spaces
• Pulls one definition and one example per sense block, combines all examples into a single field separated by line breaks
• Returns one card per word regardless of how many sense blocks Cambridge has

__init__.py

• Replaced fields: removed TranscriptionUK/US → single IPA field; removed raw Definitions HTML → separate Definition and Example fields
• New fields: Word, IPA, AudioUK, AudioUS, PartOfSpeech, Definition, Example
• Front template: word only
• Back template: IPA → type → space → definition → space → examples → space → audio
• CSS: dark background (#111111), white word text with !important to override Anki defaults, teal IPA, muted italic examples with a left border

config.json

• default_language set to english
• languages block contains only english
• Deck renamed to My English Vocabulary
• Note type renamed to English Vocab Card

Installation

1. In Anki, go to Tools → Add-ons → Get Add-ons and paste #1624807104
2. Restart Anki
3. If you used the original add-on before, go to Tools → Manage Note Types, delete English Vocab Card, then restart again so the new field structure is created fresh

Usage

Tools → Add from Cambridge → type a word → press OK

The add-on will:

1. Fetch the English definition from Cambridge
2. Download UK and US pronunciation audio to your media folder
3. Create one card in your My English Vocabulary deck

Syncing to Mobile

You cannot add words from mobile (Python add-ons don't run on AnkiDroid or AnkiMobile), but your cards sync fully:

1. Add words on desktop as usual
2. Click Sync in Anki desktop
3. Open AnkiDroid or AnkiMobile → tap Sync

Cards, audio, and styling all transfer correctly.

Requirements

requests
beautifulsoup4

Anki add-on link

Cambridge Dictionary Anki Add-on (English Focus Fork)

Credits

Based on Cambridge Dictionary Parser for Anki by the original author.