Simplified Chinese flashcards should not drift into traditional characters just because a dictionary source or a search query used them. If a student is learning 书 ("book"), the card should show 书, not 書. The search box can be flexible. The flashcard should stay disciplined.
That is the Simplified Chinese rule: display simplified, search broadly.
Rule 1: Keep Simplified Characters Primary
Chinese does not use alphabetic spelling, grammatical gender, or articles. The learner-facing unit is the character or word in the script the student is studying.
For a simplified course, that means 学校 ("school"), 书 ("book"), and 水 ("water"). Some forms look the same in both scripts. Some do not. When they differ, the card should keep the simplified form visible.
Simplified Chinese flashcard
Rule 2: Use Pinyin As Support
Pinyin is Mandarin pronunciation written with the Latin alphabet. It is extremely useful for beginners, and it should be searchable with or without tone marks. A student should be able to find 水 ("water") by typing shuǐ or shui.
But pinyin is not the word. It belongs as support under the Chinese form, and students should be able to hide it when they want character-only review.
Simplified Chinese without pinyin
Rule 3: Let Traditional Search Find Simplified Cards
A student may paste or type a traditional form while studying simplified Chinese. Search should still help. 書 should be able to find 书. 學校 should be able to find 学校.
The display should not change because of that search. If the course is simplified, the saved flashcard should still be simplified.
What Ludus Avoids
Simplified Chinese flashcards should not inherit rules from Spanish or French. There are no noun articles like el or la. There are no masculine and feminine slash pairs like amigo / amiga. There is no European plural article system.
Those rules are useful in the right languages. In Simplified Chinese, they would be noise.
How Ludus Applies These Rules
Ludus keeps simplified characters as the visible study form, keeps pinyin as optional support, and allows traditional equivalents to help search. The learner gets a forgiving search experience without losing script identity in review.
That is the balance a good Simplified Chinese flashcard needs: flexible input, stable output.