I might not have worded that the best way I could have, so bear with me.
I'm able to consume just about any media that appeals to me, and I can just learn as I read or watch. If a new word is important, it will absolutely get repeated, giving me natural exposure. Generally speaking, I don't add to Anki anymore from what I'm reading or watching. For the most part, this has been completely fine.
And yet, if I had any delusions of becoming truly fluent, I think I ought to know certain words that natives my age would absolutely know even though such words don't necessarily show up in the media I like nearly often enough for me to pick up naturally.
This is where I'm considering reintroducing Anki. I'm going over Kanshudo's list of 10,000 words by usefulness, just to see where the gaps are in my vocab. For now, I'm just typing up a simple text file. I'll worry about the Anki cards later. Turns out, despite being comfortable with all manner of media, I still have a handful of unknown words they classify as N3.
Somehow, it feels a little bit less annoying to add words to Anki from these lists out of context from media because when I'm consuming media to train language skills, my intentions aren't to take away time from the natural media. I don't have anything automated because I view making cards as part of my learning process before I let the Anki scheduler take over. I'd need to take time to make the cards one way or another, it feels less disruptive to make cards of the listed words. As mentioned, natural exposure is, more often than not, already enough. Making cards out of my media feels like I'm taking away time from just consuming said media, whereas I can go through the lists on my downtime, and even introduce more time for passive listening (a skill I haven't bothered to train recently) as I work on the cards.
by ignoremesenpie