I’ve been doing it since day one, but I fear that if I don’t do it carefully enough, it might cripple my accent later on.
Also, saying the words out loud kind of demotivates me from doing anki as it’s a lot more work and gets stressful since I don’t want to pick up bad speaking habits, so not saying words out loud would actually be a relief, but I want to do what is most optimal for learning.
Honestly, its not too valuable. Japanese phonemes are mostly straightforward for english speakers, with the exception of “n”, the “d” and “r” syllabes, and the small “y” syllables (kya, ryo, etc). Those deserve some practice.
The stuff that gets complicated is things like devoicing, pitch accent, and redaku, which are all contextual. Listen for these in your anki so you get familiar with them, then practice them either in person or by shadowing in your immersion.
SRS helps you remember the shape of the word so you can qet to know it when you meet it in the wild, but it won’t teach you the job that word plays in laguange.