Hey there, I chose to study the N5 path as it’s for beginner. Now I’m doing the grammar lessons, but after studying the い-adjectives part, it’s suddenly throwing words at me like ‘fun’ and ‘hot’.
These are words I wouldn’t have studied yet. Is it recommended to go through vocab N5 first? Just confused as this is the first class Bunpro gave me after choosing N5.
Bunpro is mainly used for grammar only (it’s not a textbook), so that means its focus is not for teaching vocabulary (unless you are using the vocab decks, which are a work in progress - I’m not sure I’d recommend those for a beginner). It is quite normal to have new words thrown at you in grammar reviews.
I would advise downloading an N5/JLPT Anki deck or similar and learning the words in there at the same time as studying grammar in Bunpro. In Bunpro, focus on learning the meaning of the grammar and how to use it, rather than all the words in the example sentences. Then you can focus on picking up those words properly in Anki.
A lot of people use Bunpro in combination with WaniKani to expand their kanji/vocab. Some people don’t like WaniKani, but many find it pretty helpful. That’s an option too.
Hey, SudoNymm. Really appreciate the reply. Will look into finding an N5 Anki deck. I also believe Bunpro is going to be great for grammar, but I will need to find something else for vocab.
Thanks a lot!
You’re welcome, happy to help! I think language learning boils down to finding which combo of tools in the toolkit helps the most effectively. Unfortunately, there’s never just one solution (and the things that bill themselves as one generally fall short).
Those words are usually off to the right of the sentence in brackets, so you shouldn’t be held back by not knowing vocab. It is best to study vocab alongside grammar, though, because vocab is by far the biggest time investment.
As mentioned before, Bunpro is meant for grammar. you will often encounter words you don’t know yet, but it’s part of the process, you’ll learn new words all the time through your Japanese journey.
For strengthening your vocabulary, you may have heard about wanikani already, I find it to be a great way of learning kanjis. many people find the combo wanikani/bunpro to be quite effective for language learning, and I also recommend it. In Bunpro you can also find the basic vocabulary as in SRS, haven’t used it that intensively. myself, but I think it might also be a good alternative.
These two are definitively not everything you need, since you’ll still need listening and speaking, but it does help a ton.
Please use the yomitan or rikaikun extensions on chrome which enable you to look up words definitions by hovering your mouse over them on the web page.
Use wanikani! Its a app/website that teaches you kanji and words in a really great way! I personally did Wanikani for a while before starting Bunpro (although I new n5 and moved onto N4 which requires more vocab knowledge.)
You should be fine if you start wanikani simultaneously with Bunpro (assuming you aren’t doing 4/5 points a day).
WK has 60 levels and I started Bunpro round L20 with like 700 kanji knowledge and a few thousand vocab words.
You can use Bunpro for word learning but I’d really recommend Wanikani since bunpro doesn’t teach you why words mean what they do, whilst wanikani does using their radical system.
(Just want to point some stuff out for the OP as it can be confusing with all the tools out there.)
The radicals on Wanikani are not the actual components that kanji are made from. The meanings attached to Wanikani “radicals” and kanji are made up to be used as mnemonic devices. I just want to point this out as the above comment makes it sound like Wanikani is giving genuine reasons for why words have the meanings they do, which it doesn’t.
Wanikani is a kanji learning system. Others include RTK, KKLC, and Kanji in Context. There are also many Anki decks and a solid app called Kanji Study on Android. Many kanji learning systems besides Wanikani also use mnemonics and component breakdowns. My personal opinion is to check out a few different ones and try one for a little while. I stopped studying kanji actively after less than 100 because I didn’t like doing it and I don’t like mnemonics. It is totally viable to not study kanji explicitly but some people like to split vocab and kanji study. Handwriting is a different kettle of fish though. Find what you like.
As for vocab, Bunpro N5 is polished, I believe, although I know that N1 is not. I also recommend looking at Anki pre-built decks and JPDB frequency decks as those are the other two popular systems for beginner vocab SRS. Again, it’s worth checking out your options and choosing what you like yourself. You’d be better served by an N5 deck or a top frequency vocab deck than by Wanikani vocab however if you can manage the workload then you can study both in conjunction (one for vocab, one for kanji), if that’s what you want to do.
As for Bunpro grammar, you do not need to know every word. As someone else wisely suggested, use a popup dictionary like Yomitan. Read the sentence carefully, check the words you don’t know as you go, don’t worry about not quite understanding so long as you understand the grammar point at hand. That would be my suggestion. The goal is to become familiar with the grammar in context.
It is confusing with all the tools and conflicting opinions out there. The main thing is to settle on what personally works for you, which can also change over time, and just continue learning. Good luck!
I think a great way to use this site as a beginner is the textbook paths
The most popular textbook used in college classes is Genki
audio downloads Here
genki3.japantimes.co.jp/en/student/
Marugoto Marugoto
and Tae Kim’s grammar guide are both available online.
Introduction – Learn Japanese
Study from the textbook, and then go content→decks and pick your textbook from the list.
I Recommend this anki deck for beginners:
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/911122782
For me I did the genki textbook, studied kanji with kanji damage, and then sentence vocabulary deck like the one above