I did Anki religiously every day for 2 years, I managed to internalize a bunch of facts about Japanese and no skills. I knew tons of vocab words and grammar poi

I did Anki religiously every day for 2 years, I managed to internalize a bunch of facts about Japanese and no skills. I knew tons of vocab words and grammar points but I couldn't make a sentence in the heat of the moment to save my life. I know memorization is a part of the game, but it's not the whole game. It's like learning a bunch of music theory without actually touching an instrument. I am learning Mandarin now and my approach is completely different. Speaking and listening are the most important, I'm letting muscle memory of mouth (and sometimes gesturing tones with my hand) be my memorization technique. Six months-ish in and I can already express myself in rudimentary ways, it's way better than my Japanese was in that time frame. I have some Mandarin Anki decks that I do in the cracks of my day but I never finish my daily cards anymore and I don't spend a lot of time on it. I'll schedule an italki lesson or listen some speak-and-repeat courses instead. Memorizing the notes in a song isn't learning to play music, memorizing a bunch of vocabulary isn't learning a foreign language.