I think everyone have different needs in their learning. If you find something boring, then it probably won’t help you a lot. Learning is part chore, part interest. I find that I work best when both reading, listening and repeating things over and over again while making metaphores and anologies. Languages are a lot more repetition and thinking than e.g. chemistry but I still work with it in the same way.
I’d tell you to at least try flashcards. Don’t do a lot of them, just make them and go through them when you have five minutes to kill.
“And I kinda follow steve’s philosophy: " Focus 80% of your time in the big picture (listen and read) and the rest of the time you can do flashcards, review grammar rules, or whatever you want.”
Maybe Steve was directly or indirectly inspired by Douglas H. Brown. (H. Douglas Brown - Wikipedia)
He compared language learning to a camera. Input and using the language are like using a wide-angle lens (to see the “big picture”) while flashcards, grammar etc. are like zooming in.
Oh, and I´m taking classes to learn the basics of language teaching and they say that 80% practice / 20% instruction is pretty effective.
"You mention it is freely downloaded, but that is beside the point.
Every big user base or popular name on the Internet translates to money in the end. "
How? They don´t even have ads on their page http://ankisrs.net/
You just have to find a way to create interesting flashcards
That takes a lot of work!
I am seeing that using Anki can be useful for learning and remembering advanced words that don’t appear very often or phrases.
This was my reasoning for not using Anki, is context learning is more effective.
Then again, I tried the ‘anti-flashcard’ method while taking Biochemistry in college (which is pretty much pure memorization) and I pretty much HAD to use flashcards to remember the stupid details because of the mass bulk/volume of the material needed to know.
Pretty much every language learning program I’ve seen tries to use some form of SRS integrated with flashcards with fancy pictures and sound bytes.
Memrise, Babbel, Rosetta Stone, and DuoLingo to name a few.
I feel the majority of the learning things out there are glorified flashcards. Even though all the methods except RS I’ve mentioned are free, they still make money off of the system.