I have been using SuperMemo for more than eight years and have more than 70,000 flashcards on a variety of subjects and languages, and once I got the hang of proper flashcard creation I have been able to remember almost anything I want: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm
Look at the above article for rules on how to make proper flashcards. SuperMemo, Anki, etc. are all good at helping you remember information, but if the flashcards are not correctly made, it's like putting water into an engine that requires gasoline. The thought that all explicit memorization is bad is a total myth; if you break any of the 20 above rules, flashcards will suffer (Trying to memorize before you understand, not learning things in list form, etc.).
I have used Supermemo for five years and learned thousands of Japanese words, and now I'm working through Chinese. Use whatever program you want (Anki, Mnemosyne, Supermemo, etc.), but stick with whatever you are doing, and use SRS to save your progress.
Look at the above article for rules on how to make proper flashcards. SuperMemo, Anki, etc. are all good at helping you remember information, but if the flashcards are not correctly made, it's like putting water into an engine that requires gasoline. The thought that all explicit memorization is bad is a total myth; if you break any of the 20 above rules, flashcards will suffer (Trying to memorize before you understand, not learning things in list form, etc.).