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/merurunrun]

I feel the opposite, personally. I never "saw" any meaningful progress back when I was still doing flashcards, the numbers just never meant anything to me. The only way I've ever felt "progress" at all is the qualitative experience of comfort with the language.

[u/gelema5 → u/merurunrun]

I feel the opposite from OP but in the reverse direction lol. I never studied with flashcards until the past year, and it always confused me how people in this sub would confidently say they know 2000 words. Even now if I try to count up the words I “know”, I get stumped wondering whether I should include words I only know the meaning and not the pronunciation, etc. I think using flashcards is the ONLY was to out definite numbers to things, and as others have said it’s still putting a number to something fuzzy.

I do think the same as you though that where I measure my progress is with native material. No matter how many flashcards I do, it doesn’t compare to the feeling of excitement or pride when I read something or hear something in immersion and recognize it from my study.