Below are the stat output of my Anki experience. The first one is in Month view, and the second is in Deck Lifetime, meaning about 3 months.
While this isn't producing some sort of miracle learning in terms of me speaking Cantonese, I do at least remember something like 160 different words to varying degrees. This includes pronunciation and audio recognition.
I am also listening to lessons, and I definitely find that having Anki deal with the memorization problems frees me up when listening to the lessons.
The whole process is actually sometimes spooky. I will be shown a word in cantonese, or hear one, and feel like I can't remember it, but then the first thing pops into my mind, and 95% of the time that first thing is right. That is when the system is working on the very edge of my memory.
One lesson I learned is that you have to be very careful when adding new cards. At one point I was adding 15 new cards a day, which means 5 new words, and very quickly I was struggling and having a very bad time. It made the process very stressful. So I cut it down to just 4 cards a day, less than 2 new words, and it feels much better.
And I have found this to be a very easy habit to pick up. I've studied 90% of the days since I started. And most incredible is the fact that it only has taken a total of 11 hours. Imagine trying to learn 160 words, spelling and pronunciation in 11 hours. That would be impossible.
But I did it?
Kyler