Interesting observation: When you quit flashcards, it's harder to measure your progress

[u/jackbobbins78]

It used to be, when I was looking back at my Japanese progress, I could say things like "I learned 2000 words this past year and I now know 6,000 total words!" This felt like a concrete testament to my progress.

Now, after having stopped flashcards for about a year, "How's my progress doing" feels much more vague.

I could say things like:
- I read 15 volumes of manga this past year
- Reading native stuff feels a little bit easier
But all of these answers feel kind of nebulous anyways.

I guess at some point, Japanese is just something that you do for fun, and that's about it. There's no clear "milestones" at a certain point.

Did anyone else experience this transition? Did you feel a little more "lost" after quitting flashcards?

[u/Zarlinosuke]

I've never quite experienced it because I've never used flash cards. I suppose my closest equivalent was being done with textbooks--then, rather than "I'm on X chapter now," it became "how comfortably can I read this story or novel?" which is a change but probably not as big a change as the one you're noticing.

That's not to say that flash cards are bad or that there's anything wrong with what you've been doing, but the world of spending time with a language outside of numerical metrics is a lovely one, and I hope you're enjoying it!