What do you get when you review a word with flashcards or a spaced repetition system?
When you can go through a list and give all the correct answers, what have you accomplished? Do you know the words or are you simply adept at reciting answers?
What does it mean to “know” a word? At a minimum, you should be able to understand it when it’s spoken and when you read it. Beyond that you must be able to use the word when speaking and writing.
And if all of that is true, what have you accomplished when you review a word? You’ve read it, but out of context. You haven’t heard it. You haven’t seen it written in context so you don’t know what context to write it in. Ditto for speaking it.
So once again, what have you accomplished?
And when you take a word in Japanese and look it up its english translation so that you can review it, what do you have? Can you use this new japanese word in Japanese as you would its english translations in English?
If not, what is the value of learning this direct translation?
I’m not suggesting that there is no value to translated meanings or to reviewing. I’m asking how much are they really worth? And given how easy it is to burn out reviewing vocabulary, I think it’s a very important question.