Ancdata-o-story similar to what the author describes in the article.
2-3 months ago I was about to take the Goethe B1 exam (German language). I would had probably passed it anyway, but wanted to be sure. I downloaded the official Goethe B1 wordlist (2.5k words), and one week before the exam I started learning it in Anki.
I spent on avg. 2.5h per day, and out of those 2.5k words, I didn't know maybe 800. I've learnt them. Many of those words appeared later during the exam.
I told about it my German teacher, somewhat excited, and she was sort-a 'meh, whatever, you can also learn in other ways'. I tried to explain, that "800 words, and in a week, and so fast", but as much as she loved my good exam results, she had no intention to recommend this way of learning to others.
German -> English (or my mother tongue) is easy. I probably remember >90%. But the other way it's harder. I remember maybe half of those German words, further 1/4 I can recall after some mental effort, and probably 1/4 are lost or they would require say >10 min thinking (actually possible to recover them with some techniques).
In any case I use many of those words actively today (e.g. during my German classes).
E.g. yesterday, I tried to use word 'horizontal' in German, as it was on the list, and couldn't recall it quickly. My teacher gave me the word ('waagrecht'), and I should have obviously know it, and would know the meaning if somebody used it in German, but couldn't recall it easily.
2-3 months ago I was about to take the Goethe B1 exam (German language). I would had probably passed it anyway, but wanted to be sure. I downloaded the official Goethe B1 wordlist (2.5k words), and one week before the exam I started learning it in Anki.
I spent on avg. 2.5h per day, and out of those 2.5k words, I didn't know maybe 800. I've learnt them. Many of those words appeared later during the exam.
I told about it my German teacher, somewhat excited, and she was sort-a 'meh, whatever, you can also learn in other ways'. I tried to explain, that "800 words, and in a week, and so fast", but as much as she loved my good exam results, she had no intention to recommend this way of learning to others.