Pros & Cons of "Vacation Mode"?

WaniKani Tips & Tricks
#1

I can’t be doing WK anymore. Not the way its set up. My focus right now is reading and grammar, with some listening. I average a Level every 7-8 days with 98% accuracy on Reviews so it’s hard for me to pump the brakes on such a crack habit I have with the program. I thought “vacation mode” would help because I’m the kind of person that once I see those Reviews… I can’t help myself. And I sure as heck don’t want them to pile up while I’m literally studying WaniKani offline with Bunpro, so what can I do?

I rather do 3 new Kanji a day instead of my usual 10 new Kanji a day plus related vocab, 70% decrease of new Lessons. I thought I could start the day with the new Kanji, do the initial Review in 3 hours and then turn it off after I hit the 7 hour mark. The following morning, turn it back on…THEN do that 7 hour Review that puts it at 22hours till the next review. Initate my next 3 for that day. and so on and so forth.

That would mean that instead of my incessant Reviews all day, everyday, I’d only be doing Reviews at specific designated times. Morning, afternoon, before bed. Without accumulating more Reviews as I sleep either.

That’s basically pulling 6 hours out of rotation a day. Between changing my Lessons from 10 a day to 3 a day and adding 6 hours into a 24 hour cycle to space out my potential burn items, would that reasonably create a big enough dent that I can study my Kanji independently from here on out?

I swear if I hit Level 52 in the next few days anyway I’ll scream.

Man my brain is fried…

#2

I can’t comment on the pros and cons of vacation mode, but I can say that the review timings have +1 hour on all of the following values you got there. So you might want to recalculate a bit.

Review timings from @jprspereira’s guide:

Anyway, good luck with figuring out stuff!

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#3

I can’t comment about the Pro’s and Con’s of “Vacation Mode” but I’m basically in the same boat as you are. I’m actually planning on quitting WK at level 51. To do that I’ll no longer take lessons past that level, try to burn as much as I can and then turn on vacation mode before the sub runs out.

Even at my level I feel that I’d rather learn the Kanji and words depending on what I’m immersing on instead of learning ones that are not in line with my interests. Although, do note that I’ve been reading since WK 0 (with increasing difficulty) and have stopped studying from textbooks at level 34 when I finished Tobira.

I think it is better to do something that you enjoy that provides enough challenge to feel a sense of progress (i.e. immersing) than to be burned out or stuck in a rut because of habit, familiarity, and/or being afraid of going out of one’s comfort zone.

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#4

So, Vacation Mode freezes all the cards - they won’t advance up the queue while it’s on. That is to say, if you have a card that will come up for review in seven hours, and you put vacation mode on, whenever you turn vacation mode back off, the card will still have seven hours until the next review.

If you’ve got a big backlog already, the use of vacation mode will help that to not build up further while you work your way through it, but as a way to force reviews to occur at specific times of day, it’s not really a great method. The only way to accomplish that is discipline - you need to make sure that you only do reviews at certain times of day.

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#5

No, my timings are correct. You have to get the Review in before the start of a new hour so we are actually saying the exact same thing.

You Initiate a Kanji at 11:53am… just in time
Add +3 hours from 12pm - Available at 3pm
You do the Kanji again at say… 4:38pm.
Add +7 hours from 5:00pm - Available at 12am next day.
+22hrs

  • 1 day & 22hrs
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#6

the time of day the review is available changes with each level up so even if I do the reviews the same time of day every day, my pile will still vary. Discipline is a non-issue. My problem is the opposite. I see Reviews and I drop what I’m doing to do them and that needs to stop. I think with this I can check my calendar and know when to turn it back on so I can have reviews when I actually have time to do them. I don’t want to complete WaniKani just yet. I’d like to take my time learning these last levels.

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#7

Not the answer you’re looking for, but why not just finish WK? You’re almost there. The last 10 levels are “short” levels, which you should be able to pass in less than a week each at your speed. You’re about 2 months from completion.

But if your problem is that WK review addition is affecting your work and/or life, then perhaps (1) you should see a psychiatrist about help with your ADHD or OCD, whatever the case may be; and (2) use a site blocker to prevent accessing WK except during designated time periods every day.

#8

I wish it’s that simple. It takes about six months for an item to get burned so he really doesn’t have two months left. If the point is just to recognize the Kanji and not burn it then he’s better off creating a dedicated deck in Anki and cut off his losses.

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#9

Ah, I see what you mean. Cool cool.

Then the solution is to apply that discipline in the opposite direction - don’t open wanikani at times of the day when you wouldn’t want reviews to be available for you. In other words, use your discipline to slow down on the gas pedal. The reviews might be there, but you don’t have to do them as soon as they’re available.

I think that’s what Belthazar meant.

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#10

Precisely. It’s the discipline to resist the gamification. The “reviews are there, gotta do 'em” urge. Do the reviews on your terms.

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#11

I would immediately stop doing lessons. Give yourself 2 weeks without any new items. Let yourself focus on the leeches. In these 2 weeks, you’ll review Apprentice items + all guru, which will reduce your review pile significantly. Then restart again at a slower pace, or don’t, and establish routines for the reading/grammar/listening. The first days should already prove to show results since you’ll take care of the apprentice items.

Vacation mode also freezes the SRS intervals, so I honestly don’t see a point. Reviews won’t unlock themselves during it.

If you stop doing lessons, then there’s no need to check WK 3x/day. Choose a time of the day to do reviews, and then only visit WK once a day. If you have time to open WK a 2nd time, it means you have time to be doing reading/grammar/listening, so do the latter options instead :slight_smile:

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#12

I was referring to reaching Level 60, not burning every single thing in WK. I could actually complete it in a month… but that would be psychotic. LOL There’s just so much more I need to learn. Have you tried Kitsun? I hear that they have an additional unit past this one? Is that true? I haven’t used Anki at all just yet. I’m on a mac and all the tutorials I’ve found for yomichan & anki are for PC users.

So far Vacation mode is working well. I’m only doing my Reviews when I want to do them instead of when that mean crabcrocodile tells me to… at a 66% slower pace overall. Halfway through N5 in Bunpro as a result. Hooray for me!

P.S. I did a post a while back about creating a Karaoke Night online utilizing this app… https://w2g.tv and Zoom maybe? You guys interested? Its more a matter of mental wellness for the WK Community. I am a terrible singer and usually only belt out the very last syllable of every line for every song. lol. I thought we could do drinking games and eat the same foods…have two separate times once a month? something like that?

#13

98% Accuracy?! Could you maybe give me a hint I’m happy when a review session beats 70%
Good job

#14
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#15

My man. Hooking me up with that forbidden knowledge. Secret is “safe” with me

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#16

Ok, I just think that it’ll be a waste if you stop your reviews upon reaching level 60 (especially for the Kanji) and not burn them. I’m not familiar with the Mac version of anki but from what I can tell the UI is virtually the same. Anyways, just think of how you will transition out of WK once you’re done because you will be surprised by the amount of words that you’ll encounter and may need to memorize once you start consuming native materials.

Aside from WK and Anki, I don’t want to add any more SRS on my studies as I want to prioritize on the fun stuff: reading, listening, and watching things that are in Japanese. Focusing too much on SRS may lead to burnout and pigeonhole oneself in memorizing words instead of understanding sentences as you read/listen to them.

Thanks for the invite but I’m not confident about my singing skills.

Good luck and enjoy your studies.

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#17

Here you go, this is the forbidden secret :eyes:

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#18

No!!! Those are cheating >:c
If I can’t know it in my head it is worthless to me. Computer is an evil device that makes you think you are smart while secretly keeping you the dumbest. I refuse >:CCCCC

#19

Kinda ironic since you’re subscribed to a service that uses these evil devices to help you memorize Kanji. What’s next, you’ll say that books are evil because you’ll write things down and read them instead of memorizing them?

#20

As for Yomichan + Anki - even I managed to do that on my mac, so it is feasible.
You need the yomichan plug-in for chrome (assuming you use chrome).
On the settings page, there is a special notice for mac users about system settings that might have to be adjusted. It links to this: FooSoft Productions - AnkiConnect
My main issue turned out to not be OS related, it had something to do with configuring the anki deck. Not the configuring itself, just realising I needed to do some configuring.
It even works with Netflix subtitles, so it’s quite useful!