Holidays and Japanese Learning

[h4nn4]

Hey there,

whats your go-to-method during your inevitable holidays/trips/etc. in regards to Japanese learning? Everyone goes onto to do a holiday sometimes, right? Or meet with family, etc.
Are you just continuing to study as usual? Are you stopping completly? Are you perchance doing less?

I’ve recently rewarded myself with holidays after completing and passing a stressful exam in university. I’ve added a screenshot from my Anki stats. There are three big gaps that you can see: When I was moving, then Holiday 1 and Holiday 2 afterwards. Also you can see that I wasn’t studying every day before as university sadly had to be my priority (wonder if I can tie those two together in the future? Japanology-ish interdisciplinary Masters Programme…yeah sounds nice…).

Its such a hussle to get back into it honestly. Anki reviews piling up to 1500+ cards (looking at you, core 2K deck). Kanji not staying with me, for no reason at all.
Thankfully, Bunpro isn’t as bad in this regard. However to be honest, studying during holidays isn’t easy, either; distractions are prone to happen, even more so during things like moving apartments or family stuff.

Is it a question of mindset? Is it normal?

Im excited to learn from your experiences.

[adorable]

I study every morning “without exception” and have done so for 2,5 years or so. It is far worse for me to not do my reviews than get a ton of reviews later. I do take small 1-2 day breaks from reading/watching every now and then though so I can get errands and such done and just clear my head a bit which does help, but week+ long breaks are not good for retention. Much less harmful when you are already somewhat used to the language though.

There is one exception though and that is when I go on trips with someone. Went on a day trip hiking last week from morning to night, I did not do reviews that morning and did the double next day instead since I was too exhausted to do them before bed.

I legitimately cannot stand when I get 2-3 days worth of reviews stacking up so I do everything I can to avoid it. When I got home from the hotel after my brothers wedding I think I had 900 reviews stacked up and did them in one go. Sometimes it just happens and I usually stop doing new cards and divide it into a more manageable pile by saying I will do only 1/2 or 2/3rd today and the rest tomorrow. Those two days are a bit rough, but it is what it is.

I recommend people never use any holiday/vacation pause features and just let the piles build up instead, it is better for retention and you can manage yourself how much you do per day anyways so if a big pile is demotivating just guesstimate how much you need to do per day to clear it in x days and it becomes manageable again.

One thing I have as a current objective marker for too many reviews is how much am I going to hate myself if I miss a day? Sure maybe I could do x reviews per day if I really really wanted to, but how bad will the double be? I make sure my double is still manageable, even if it means my normal is a bit lower than I know I could handle.

One thing I forgot to mention, I usually stop adding new items a few days in advance if there’s an upcoming event. Makes the returning pile less difficult.

[SarahSh]

I’m on holiday at the moment. While I’m doing reviews, I’m not learning new items. I started this a few days before my trip. This makes reviews more manageable in number but keeps me practicing a bit. It will also be easier when I get home and need to do laundry, re-acclimating to work, etc.