Same here, I learned Chinese largely by studying a pre made deck of sentences with audio over the course of a few years. I had lots of conversation practice too

Same here, I learned Chinese largely by studying a pre made deck of sentences with audio over the course of a few years. I had lots of conversation practice too but the SRS studying bootstrapped my knowledge to the point where I could even attempt conversations. I used to believe that using a pre made deck is a waste of time just because I heard a few people say so, now I know it’s not always true.