Looking for tips to learn w/o Anki

As the title suggests.

Having Anki burnout at this point (2 years) and pretty much sick of opening the app. I can totally understand the concept of learning a language without flashcards, that’s what I did with English.

However, I cannot even imagine learning Japanese without some sort of artificial aid, just for the fact that Kanji are not phonetic (well, yes they are somewhat, but that’s a topic for another discussion).

Is there a realistic way to learn Japanese in a reasonable pace without relying on Anki/Flashcards?

The only thing I can think of is reading and just looking up every unknown word. From my experience, words never stick with me doing this process. Is that really it? No other way without some sort of artificial repetition?

Would appreciate any input! You have my thanks.

4 comments
  1. another thing you can consider is, instead of ditching anki, keep it more under control

    e.g. if you are doing an hour of flashcards a day, try to cut it down to 25 min

    I did this and my time studying improved a lot

  2. Reading more is like anki but less structured. You will have repeated exposure to those words you don’t know, making you more likely to remember them.

    Anki just makes this more efficient, but doing it naturally like that works too. Sacrificing some efficiency for something more enjoyable is a good thing to do imo, depends on your goals obviously though.

    And like someone else said, you could just cut down on anki rather than stopping completely, while also reading more in its place.

  3. Renshuu.org is a good resource. Especially since it has a game-like feel where you level up and earn cute little pictures as you test yourself. It’s very customizable and has a lot of free content.

    I have downloaded Anki three times and have never been able to get into it.

  4. take a break. proper rest and taking breaks is a necessary part of any sort of training. also, nothing good will come from you burning out, losing some progress and rekindling the fire is a good trade-off

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