How harmful is vacation mode?

[xShin]

So In a week or so I’m going to be “disconnected” from the internet for around a month. I’ll be back for atleast 24 hours a week, with only one week that I won’t be doing so (meaning around 13 days without wanikani). there’s an option for around 10-20 minutes a day to use my phone with internet, but I doubt it’s enough to get all the reviews done.

On one hand using vacation mode WILL let me postpone all the reviews untill I’m back for the week, but I’m afraid of falling behind too much because of that (I mean that’s a month of SRS I’m missing). So I’m thinking, how bad is it going to be to let the reviews pile up for a week and then power through it before the next one?
Any suggestions would be welcomed.

Also, are there any limitations on vacation mode like limited time or how many times I can use it?

[Borx]

I hear it’s the leading cause of concerned threads among those that are apprehensive about trying it.

If you really won’t have time to dedicate to WaniKani then you’ll thank yourself later for using it. That’s what it’s there for, after all. Last year I went through Hurricane Harvey and was unable to do my reviews for weeks and wound up with about 500 piled up afterwards. I wish I had just enabled vacation mode beforehand.

[omukai]

two weeks of no reviews of fresh items will naturally hurt more than slightly delaying master/enlightened items. if i knew i’d have to go offline for a while, i’d stop doing lessons and work on damage control proactively.

[ctmf]

Serious answer: it’s a continuum of more bad–less bad. I’ll rank them.

More bad

• Do nothing on vacation, don’t use vacation mode, come back to a thousand reviews, fail them all because it’s been way longer than the interval they were supposed to be, have a huge workload spike getting all those back through to where they were
• Do nothing on vacation, DO use vacation mode but power through lessons right up until then, come back to the normal number of reviews, but fail them all, etc.
• Stop doing lessons on vacation, but keep doing reviews. Within a day to two days, your work will drop by half (no more apprentice reviews). By a week to two weeks, it’ll drop another half (no more gurus). But there will still be some master/enlighten/burn reviews to do.
• As above, but stop the lessons before you go, either 48 hrs or a week or two, so that the work load is already down, then do only reviews on vacation.
• Keep doing everything, even on vacation (probably impractical)

Less bad

[jprspereira]

Good question @EnShin. Check chapter 10 of my Guide Hope it helps

My Journey of 368 days (+ The Ultimate Guide for WK )

The Ultimate Guide to Wanikani Become the best version of your Wanikanian self. For newbies: Please read the WaniKani User Guide first before reading this. WK’s User Guide teaches you the very basics. My Guide turns you from a newbie with basic knowledge to a master. However, first, you need the basics. This Guide is really longgggggggg. You can read it all in one go, but there’s no need to if you don’t want to. Think of it as the place to come to when in doubt/need of help. Thanks …

[Maxinoume]

@ctmf ‘s answer contained the best tip imo. Stop doing lessons a week before your “disconnection” and start doing only reviews. After a week you should have around 60 daily items (loose estimation based on my stats). So 60 daily reviews should be manageable.

But if you don’t have enough time, I would still suggest to stop lessons a week before activating vacation mode. Because you will forget the last items anyway.

[17wings]

You’ve been presented with a lot of good suggestions already, but I would stop doing new lessons a week beforehand and just let the reviews pile up. A month isn’t that long and you should be able to power through the reviews when you have time/get back.

I took a 3+ month break when I was level 7, didn’t activate vacation mode, and just powered through the 500-600 reviews when I was ready. My accuracy was below 80%, but it wasn’t that bad and when things calmed down (by the next week), I was ready to start new lessons.

[Leebo]

If you die in WK, you die in the real world

[Saida]

there any limitations on vacation mode like limited time or how many times I can use it

You can be in vacation mode indefinitely, but when you turn it off, you have to wait at least a couple of days before you can turn it on. The exact number is in the FAQ. EDIT only one hour wait between vacation modes hahaha, (where did I get the couple days from?)

[seanblue]

EDIT only one hour wait between vacation modes hahaha, (where did I get the couple days from?

I think it used to be longer.

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@EnShin To the original question, I agree with others that you should stop doing lessons now, regardless of whether you go on vacation mode or not.

[Rowena]

If you are systematic about doing your lessons and reviews at particular times of day, then make note of what time you turn on vacation mode and be sure to turn it back off at around the same time (or to be more accurate, within the same hour of the day - eg. turned on at 20:16; need to turn off between 20:00 and 20:59), otherwise your review sets will show up at odd hours.

[hachiken]

I hear that if you enable vacation mood, you will feel like going on holidays.

[ooooo]

another option:
a month of time prob wont hurt items you have already guru’d. so use vacation mode while you are gone… but also since you will have your phone, just make a quick anki deck with just your apprentice items in it. you can do those while you are away (no internet nessesary). That way you will still be practicing and when you come back you can hit the ground running…

[iansacks]

I’ve powered trough some review pile-ups after breaks, intentional or otherwise, but I have to say:

I really do recommend vacation mode for its actual purpose (planned periods when you know you just won’t be able to log in).

Bring some Japanese reading/study material, and listening if you can download something. You don’t have to accept backsliding just because you can’t log on, but there’s no reason to punish yourself with a hellish review pile when you get back either. Everything will pop up again soon enough.

Final answer: Put it in vacation mode; pack some reading material. If you have time and don’t have some already, order a JLPT kanji book and some manga/prose, express-delivery. Or grammar book, or whatever else seems most useful/appropriate.

[xShin]

Thanks for everyone who replied ! I realy did get some good advices. I planned my current level such that I’ll have my last lessons around 3-4 days before I’m leaving. So as many people said I will have everything guru’d by the time I can’t use WK, and then I’ll switch to vacation mode.

Also, for those who adviced to bring other offline japanese resources, unfortunately, the Internet iself isn’t the problem as I will have internet when accesing my phone. The problem is that I won’t be accesing my phone, and acttualy, aside from those 10-20 minutes i mentioned, I will literally have no time at all even if I wanted.

Anyways, you guys realy did help me make a decision here so thanks again!
I should realy try to comment here more when I have the time.

[Kyrah]

Vacation mode typically throws a spanner in most of your apprentice tier items and sometimes guru items. But it’s not inherently bad.

I also use it now and then for a few hours to shift “patterns” in the review schedule that are becoming counter productive (I dislike having more than 30-40 reviews at once).