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Memory is associative. So if you study a topic from different approaches or read other tangential material, that has connections to the topic, you remember it a lot better, thanks to associations.

Repetition techniques simply ignore associations.

Learning new vocabulary works up until 200-300 words, then it's useless.

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It's not all or nothing, you can combine approaches :)

And if you're learning an alphabet where before you know 1000-2000 unique characters, you can't reasonably read anything, it's still very useful!

Plus who says that repetition techniques can't include context (like sentences for instance?), Bunpro being a pretty good example of this for learning Japanese grammar

Obviously don't just use SRS all day, consume media, read books, etc.

Good point, they indeed have a flat and very large set of items, and they have few connections with anything outside the system.

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