Am I supposed to understand all of the review sentences?

Bunpro
#1

I’m studying N5 vocabulary, after getting all the N5 grammar to “Seasoned” or above. I’ve done most of the deck, but I still get a lot of sentences like this -

Screenshot 2024-08-04 at 11.42.33 AM
Screenshot 2024-08-04 at 11.42.33 AM1848×364 36.7 KB

In this sentence I can pick up on “I”, “which”, “teach”, “please”… how does that translate to “Please let me know which choice I should make.”? Should I know how to write this sentence by now?

I know I can turn on the second level hint which translates the whole sentence, but I found if I do that, I end up just zeroing in on the word to be translated and glossing over the rest.

1 Like
#2

The grammar used here is taught later on, I think in the N4 Grammar deck.

The bit I find hilarious is that you can be stuck on some N5 review of very basic Japanese, click the hint button, and then have a hint to answer your simple Japanese review point written in complex Japanese. If I could read and understand all that I wouldn’t be here in the first place.

7 Likes
#3

The sentence uses this N3 (!) grammar (so no wonder you don’t know this yet, if you are at N5 level)

and also this grammar from N5

3 Likes
#4

Explanation by ChatGPT:

Sentence Breakdown

私が (わたしが):
    私 (わたし): Pronoun meaning "I" or "me."
    が: Subject marker. This particle indicates that "I" is the subject of the clause.

どれを (どれを):
    どれ: Pronoun meaning "which" or "which one."
    を: Object marker. This particle indicates that "which" is the direct object of the verb that follows.

選択すれば (せんたくすれば):
    選択 (せんたく): Noun meaning "selection" or "choice."
    すれば: Conditional form of the verb する (to do), meaning "if (I) choose" or "should (I) choose." The conditional form is created by taking the verb stem and adding ば, indicating a hypothetical situation or condition.

良いか (よいか):
    良い (よい) Adjective meaning "good" or "right."
    か: Question particle used to indicate an indirect question or uncertainty, often translated as "whether" or "if."

教えてください (おしえてください):
    教えて (おしえて): Te-form of the verb 教える (to teach or to tell). The te-form is used to make requests, give instructions, or connect clauses.
    ください: Polite request auxiliary, meaning "please." Together with the te-form of a verb, it forms a polite request, translating to "please tell" or "please let me know."

Putting It Together

The sentence can be translated literally as:
“Please tell me which one I should choose.”
Explanation of Structure

私がどれを選択すれば良いか

This is an embedded question within the sentence, asking “which one I should choose.” Here, the subject is 私 (I), and the direct object is どれ (which one). The conditional form 選択すれば suggests a hypothetical action (“if I choose”), and 良いか poses the question of correctness or appropriateness (“is good/right”).

教えてください

This is the main clause, making a polite request for information, “please tell me.”

#5

I’ve been using ChatGPT to clarify nuances between words that are both translated the same way (eg. じかい vs こんど for “next time” or きけん vs あぶない for “dangerous”) but I never thought about using it to break down full sentences! That’s neat.

3 Likes
#6

I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to understand the entire sentences, you are strictly reviewing the specific vocab word, or grammar point, that the review is about. So if you understand the word/grammar point but not the whole sentence, it’s fine, you’re still golden.
I think the reason it’s done like this is that you can get a little bit accustomed ahead of time to advanced things you will learn later down the line, as well as perhaps teach you how to focus specifically on the things you understand. Maybe?

3 Likes
#7

With the vocabulary, the example sentences follow a broader pattern than the grammar. Basically, the first 3 or 4 sentences match the level that you would study it in, and then the last 4 sentences are a mix of the higher levels. This is mainly because the focus with the vocab sentences is appearing in the most natural contexts that those words would appear in in real life, so sometimes a very short N5 sentence is not a very good example of how a word will actually be used.

The vocab levels are all graded though, so you should be able to see what level they are off to the right hand side of the sentence next to the 文 symbol (on PC).

3 Likes
#8

The vocab level grades are not strictly accurate though, at least at the lower levels. For instance, the example sentence highlighted in the original post for 選択, an N5 vocab item, is marked as an N5 example. But as pointed out above, it uses a grammar pattern that’s taught at the N3 level, ばいい(/ 良い), and even the conditional ば form isn’t taught until N4 level grammar. There are numerous similar examples I’ve noticed.

So, if you’ve only studied N5 grammar/vocab on Bunpro, the answer is no, you won’t understand all the review sentences, even the ones marked for N5, without doing extra grammar (and vocab) lookups. In this context, I would personally recommend just looking at the whole English translation, trying to get a general idea of how the given vocab word functions in the sentence, and then moving on even if you don’t have a precise understanding of all the rest of the sentence elements. That’ll come later.

2 Likes