From time to time I stumble upon some harsh criticism of flashcards (or mnemonics, or any study method not found in the classroom). This criticism being invariably geared towards the use of flashcards for language learning, this will be the focus of my arguments.
'Flashcards are useless'
Argument: People have been learning languages without flashcards for thousands of years, therefore flashcards are useless.
You probably noticed this argument is fallacious. It is like saying: people have been walking to places for millions of years, therefore planes are useless. Planes may not be an absolute requirement to travel (if boats are available!), but they make the whole thing much more effective. Because something sort of works does not mean it cannot be improved.
Proponents of the 'flashcards are useless' argument will tell you there is no point drilling vocabulary with flashcards when you can learn that vocabulary through reading, using it a few times, or simply writing it down, closing your eyes and wishing very hard you will never forget it.
Let us be clear: reading is pretty much irreplaceable when learning a language. Using the language is too. Believing your memory to be infallible, however, does not only demonstrate a profound lack of knowledge of yourself and of learning in general, but will also bring you a lot of disappointment, and will ultimately slow you down.
The most common words in a language are indeed near impossible to forget if you get enough exposure to the language as it is used by natives. But the advanced learner cannot rely entirely on input to learn new vocabulary, simply because new vocabulary is uncommon enough that they (the advanced learner) will likely not see or hear it more than a few times a month, at best. A lot of words educated natives know fall into this category. This probably happens in your native language too: you see a new word, look it up, and a few days later it is forgotten - until next time (for this reason I always add those words into my SRS).
Even amongst flashcards and SRS users, it is generally believed flashcards become less useful as you get more proficient in your chosen language. My experience with English has been the exact opposite. I don't add everyday words to my SRS (such as drying rack or washing powder - words I only learned once I started living here, and that I use very often); I do add rarer words because I know from experience I will forget most of them if I don't artificially increase my exposure to them through SRSing (calcareous, mahogany, marksmanship... unless you are a geologist in the process of redecorating your home and with an interest in shooting, it's unlikely you will hear those often - yet they are useful words to know at an advanced level). You could use paper word lists and regular reviews to achieve this repeated exposure, but if you can feed the words into an SRS and let it deal with it, why would you? Word lists also present words in a non-random order that your brain may start using as a cue to guess which word is next; this is a problem easily solved by using flashcards.
In my experience, flashcards are also much superior to simple exposure to learn the gender of nouns in languages that have this feature. I made sure to quiz myself on genders when learning German and Dutch and got them right more consistently than the students who didn't use flashcards. Gender (and similar attributes) is not always obvious or visible in context. If you use flashcards, you can make sure you always learn a word and its gender, so you don't sound funny every time you open your mouth.
'Flashcards are boring'
I don't find my reviews boring. I actually rather enjoy them.
Now, I know a lot of people do find their reviews unappealing (sometimes even excruciating). But there are plenty of things you can try to make them enjoyable. You can add pictures or sound to your cards. You can review in small sessions spread over the whole day (many people review on their phone when they have a few minutes to spare - in a queue, waiting for pasta to cook, on the bus, or between classes). You can review while listening to music, or with TV - in a foreign language is even better - in the background. Make sure your cards are easy enough, and make sure you don't use your SRS to learn, but to remember what you learned. Make sure your cards are useful to you so you don't feel that reviewing them is pointless - delete any irrelevant cards. Use things you love (novels, films, websites...) as a source of new material, so reviewing will remind you of them. Use gamification, either inside of your SRS (use AnkiStrategy with Anki) or through external tools (such as HabitRPG, or some homemade gamification plan). In short, make it easy, diverse, relevant, and rewarding.
'Flashcards teach you bad habits'
'Flashcards do not translate into real-life ability'
Using someone else's deck and learning isolated vocabulary without
examples while not getting any exposure to the language outside of
reviews would indeed not help you in real-life situations. Luckily, I have yet to meet anyone who does that.
Flashcards are a tool, not a method
Having preferences is fine
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