I've had a similar experience. I think the SRS algorithms are tuned with the assumption that you're not doing anything else to remember the words. If I'm learni

I've had a similar experience. I think the SRS algorithms are tuned with the assumption that you're not doing anything else to remember the words. If I'm learning a language, and I'm doing SRS and reading the news every day, the SRS gets less useful. My takeaway is that SRS is great for the early stages when it's impossible to grok real material. You can rely on the SRS to help you "bootstrap" your language knowledge to the point where you can start reading. Once you reach that point, you're free sailing and don't really need the SRS.