Hi.
I am trying to learn Japanese and I am creating word lists as:

Kanji/Katakana <TAB> Katakana <TAB> meaning

理由	りゆう	reason
地理	ちり	geography
無理な	むりな	impossible
特に	とくに	especially
安い	やすい	cheap

I just now scraped together the following to turn it into org-drill format.
I have not written any elisp for probably at least 40 years so, as they say, よろしくお願いします。
You should be able to munge it for your purposes.

(defun txt-to-TSV ()
  "turn a tab-separated text line into TSV"
  (interactive)
  (save-mark-and-excursion
    (save-restriction
      (let ((beg (progn (beginning-of-line) (point)))
	    (end (progn (forward-line)
			(if (looking-at "\n")
			    (- (point) 1)
			  (point))))
	    (tabs nil)
	    (tsv (vector))
	    (prev nil))

	(narrow-to-region beg end)
	(goto-char beg)
	(setq tabs (vector beg))
	(setq prev beg)
	(while (< (point) end)
	  (if (looking-at "\t")
	      (progn
		(setq tabs (vconcat tabs (vector (point))))
		(setq tsv  (vconcat tsv (vector (buffer-substring prev (point)))))
		(setq prev (+ 1 (point)))))
	  (forward-word))
	(setq tabs (vconcat tabs (vector end)))
	(setq tsv  (vconcat tsv (vector (buffer-substring prev (point)))))
	))
    ))

(defun txt-to-drill (arg)
  "convert TSV to drill"
  (interactive "p")

  (while (> arg 0)
    (setq arg (- arg 1))
    (let ((tsv (txt-to-TSV))
	  (query (concat
		  "*** Query	:drill:\n"
		  "    :PROPERTIES:\n"
		  "    :END:\n"))
	  (answer (concat
		   "**** Answer\n")))
      (if (> (length tsv) 2)
	  (progn
	    (beginning-of-line)
	    (insert "\n" query (aref tsv 0))
	    (insert "\n" answer (aref tsv 1))
	    (let ((i 2))
	      (while (< i (length tsv))
		(insert "\n" (aref tsv i))
		(setq i (+ 1 i))))
	    (insert "\n")
	    (insert "# ")
	    (beginning-of-line)
	    (forward-line)))
      )))



> On 2019-Apr-22, at 23:18, Matt Price <moptop99@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello everyone,
> 
> I'm taking an informal but intensive Nepali language class. There's no textbook, and vocabulary comes rapidly from the teacher during lcass.  I end up with notes that look like this:
> 
> **** yo & tyo-based constructions
> 
> *yo*
> | yatti  | this much  |
> | katti  | how much   |
> | yaha   | this place |
> | kaahaa | where      |
> | yasto  |            |
> | kasto  | how        |
> | yasari |            |
> | kasari |            |
> 
> *tyo* and *u*
> 
> similar, but over there.  nearly synonymous is "u", which in principle is reserved for persons, but is used for both. "u" can also be in between yo and two, between this and that.
> 
> - u kosto manche ho? ::  what kind of person is he?
> - u kosto manche ho? :: u asal manche ho
> 
> ---------
> So there are two types of notes here --
> - vocabulary in a 2-column table (sometimes there is a third or fourth table, with devenagri and a note of some kind, ubt thosse have been rare)
> - example sentences in definition lists -- sometimes they are nepali --> english, and osmetimes question --> answer
> 
> I would like ot convert both these types of construction to flashcards using org-drill, but doing so by hand would be prohibitively time-consuming.  Has anyone already written some code to doe these kinds of ocnversions? My head is so scrambled fro mthis ocurse that it's hard for me to think in lisp...
> 
> THank you!
> 
> Matt
> I would like to convert