I tried doing a grammar review session with only nuance instead of relying on English. It has some merits (like in the synonym hell examples), as long as the hints are well written - which is sadly not always the case yet.
There were some helpful ones (e.g. for っこない it made it obvious that I’m not looking for ようがない), but in most cases, the hint was just a wordier way of describing the English translation + the formality level.
And some of them were just… not that good, and I would’ve preferred the English translation over the hint. For example:
気を付けて, the hint was:
A phrase used for giving warnings, or to advise care, literally by telling someone to attach their attention to (A).
By saying “attach”, it’s just giving away the answer without me having to comprehend the sentence at all. Use the word “attach” i.e. 付ける, hint hint wink wink
てこそ
An expression that indicates doing (A) as being the precise reason for something, in a similar way to capitalization of a word in English.
The “in a similar way to capitalization of a word in English.” part was not mentioned in the grammar writeup, the linked resources, nor was it used in any of the example sentences. I had stop for a moment to comprehend what do you even mean by capitalization, and I thought for a moment that I somehow completely misunderstood the whole grammar point (I now realize you probably meant full caps, not just capitalization).
So if it will make more sense in the future, why did you change it now, for grammar too (not just vocab as the title of the thread suggests), and for also the non-beta users who don’t want to be experimented on?
Just tried it and I totally love the update
Nevertheless I agree that some grammar hints are a little confusing.
I feel like there’s nothing bad about it. Learning a language is actually about automatic retrieval of meaning from your brain after meeting the same words and constructions again and again in different contexts. This hint is just a temporarily foothold. After some point your main source of Japanese language will be books, audio and video, not Bunpro.
But probably I’d be a nice idea making a separate setting for the hint that toggles it and removing “Nuance” option from the “Review English” dropdown (as far as I understand “Nuance” actually means grammar hint, while “Hint” means English words marked in blue, at least this is how it works for me).
And adding there three options: off, show before English, show after English.
Thus everyone can customize their flow like it was before or like it is now.
For me, I like to look at the english translation and think “how would I say this in japanese?”, and use the hint only if I don’t know it already. Reading the hint and remembering what grammar point it is referring to is something I’m less interested in (and with some hints I can answer without even looking at the japanese sentence, so I don’t necessarily get any “how would this grammar point be used in a real sentence” practice).
As for losing time thinking about what grammar point fits best, that’s usually not a problem to me. I try something, and if its not the answer you’re looking for (but not wrong), my reaction is “that would work, now what other synonyms do I know?”. And if there is a more casual/polite/etc. prompt as well, it’s like I’m reviewing two or more grammar points, and their similarities and differences, with just the one practice sentence (which I like).
That said, if I were using bunpro to study vocab I would totally prefer the new order, especially if the hint is in japanese. Congrats on that front
I did not complaint directly but I share the same feelings of these posts. For me, the change in order is really annoying. I wish one could set up the order in some setting options. I find the “nuance” part very distracting. For me the point of the SRS system is to get the grammar structure without having to think about the grammar point. Also, it feels as if the nuance readings became more convoluted (complicating simple grammar points) than they should be. Anyway, the new order is making my reviews to last long since I have to do many clicks. I have 100 items or so that I’m trying to clear from my reviews and a busy life so it would be nice we could set up the order.
Same for me. I think that also mirrors how I think about grammar points in real life situations (until I’m firm enough with them that I don’t have to think about them anymore).
If I’m trying to tell somebody that I will go somewhere to study (and can’t come up with the grammar point intuitively yet), I’ll likely think “Huh, how do you say ‘will go to do something’ in Japanese again?” So, that’s what I want to practice.
I won’t go all abstract and think “Huh, what’s an expression that focuses on the destination of a journey between (A) and (B), or the purpose.”, which sounds really complicated and is actually something I have to think about what it means, as opposed to “will go study ~”, which makes me immediately recall the grammar point.
It’s long, complicated, distracting and doesn’t help me, so until I can turn “Minimal English” on as the first hint level it goes into the adblocker. Which isn’t ideal, because if for some reason I’m stuck, I’d love to be able to click a button to show the next level of hints (for me the ideal order would be “Minimal English” → “Hint” → “Full English Sentence”).
Apart from that… I feel like it might be useful as the first hint when it’s Japanese-only (like “Japanese Hint” → “Minimal English” → “English Hint” → “Full English Sentence”), but I wonder if it’ll feel this convoluted in Japanese too? With a lot of the hint sentences I had to think about what it means in English first, and I thought I knew English.
Just tagging everyone who mentioned preferring the translation first.
We just released two new settings (Grammar Hint Order and Vocab Hint Order). Both offer the choice of “Translation First” or “Nuance First”. This is only live outside of the beta right now. I expect it will be live in the beta tomorrow and in the mobile app later this week when we release a full overhaul of the app.
The Review English setting hasn’t changed. Here is an example of how the two settings interact:
If you have Review English set to “Hide” and “Nuance First”, the hint will cycle as follows:
Hide(starting): Nothing is visible
Nuance: Nuance is visible
Nuance+: Nuance + Nuance Translation is visible
Hint: All nuance + single highlighted word
Show: All information
If you have Review English set to “Hide” and “Translation First”, the hint will cycle as follows:
Hide(starting): Nothing is visible
Hint: single highlighted word
Show: Sentence Translation
Nuance: Sentence Translation + nuance
Nuance+: Sentence Translation + nuance + Nuance Translation is visible
Depending on what you choose as the starting point based on “Review English” and the Hint Order setting, you will start each review at the given point in the order.
We do highly recommend that you use the Nuance First setting but we also stick by our overarching philosophy of doing our best to support users in studying in the way that works best for them.
Please let us know what you think about the new settings!
Awesome, thanks for the bringing the option back. I may give “Nuance First” a shot just to see how it is; I’m still way early in studies (still in N4) so plenty of time to try something different.
What a wonderful change, どうも有難うございます! I fully share the underlying philosophy. Of course I’ve already set the “Nuance First” though sometimes it’s quite hard, 難しいね… In any case, 頑張ろう!
Thank you. But I hope you didn’t misunderstand, I don’t prefer translations in general, I very much support the underlying idea, but the current nuance definitions need some rework. Some more examples that I encountered today:
に関わる:
Nuance: A phrase expressing being linked to (A), to show that (B) is concerning or about (A).
TL: that has to do with
I don’t see how this nuance is better than the TL.
つまり
Nuance: A phrase used for summarizing that packs information into something smaller.
TL: To sum up
Same as above, the nuance is just a harder to understand version of the TL. And most of the nuances that appeared today were like this.
なかなか
Nuance: A word that expresses a very high level of (A), by stating that it is at the most center of what would be expected of (A).
Again, it literally gives away the answer. This is not teaching me that なかなか is a very high level of A, it’s teaching me that if I see the phrase “at the most center”, I have to use the answer なかなか, because なか is inside, center. This should be used as a last resort hint, not the first one.
This is the reason I’m currently staying with “English first”, it’s not just a “resistant to chage” thing.
Thank you for giving us the choice! It is working well
It REALLY shows how much the Bunpro team cares about the users. Especially in contrast with the meltdown happening at WK in regards to their recent site changes.
This captures some of my reservations. The hints are nice for disambiguation, and In Japanese will be amazing. That being said the English versions seems to often give the answer with a wink and a smile.
This is also interesting to me because I think that the old design had incidental qualities that may have been more useful that previously appreciated. The synonym situation was in a good place I thought. And now that it will become more strict maybe there is some magic being lost.
I have to agree with these kinds of hints. I have the same feeling whenever I see “limit”. With any of the 限る grammars.
The reason most of these appear the way they do is to give the nuance of the grammar point, but leave the remembering portion up to the student. This is done through use of target words in English that are related to, or fit the original meaning of the Japanese word in English, without forcefully linking something to a common English expression. For example, つまる means ‘to be packed’, ‘to be full’, or ‘to shrink down’. In some cases, this will be more difficult than the English translation (until memorized), and in some cases it will be easier than the English translation (like with なかなか).
The main difference is in that the nuance simply points out the more literal meaning of the Japanese phrase in all possible situations, while the English translation is written in a way that tailors to each sentence on a sentence by sentence basis. This results in the English translation being great for natural translation purposes, but often not very good for disambiguating between similar structures, or for teaching what the actual meaning of the Japanese is.
Some people have said they aren’t sure about the hints because they are harder than the translation, and some have said that they aren’t sure about them because they are easier than the translation. However, whether they are in fact easier or harder usually varies greatly depending on the grammar point in question, and whether it has synonymous grammar points or not. As a student, seeing a specifc hint and then instantly remembering the grammar point is not necessarily a bad thing, as that is exactly why they were written. We aren’t telling you the answer, we’re just giving a piece of information that we think will be helpful to associate with that answer. If you don’t actually know the word なかなか or remember how it works at all, then neither the hint nor the translation will be very helpful.
It is up to each student to decide in what way they want to challenge themselves while learning, and what that challenge actually provides them in terms of value. For example if you see the nuance and remember the grammar point straight away, or use the translation and think of the right grammar point after 30 seconds or a minute, does the extra thinking actually give you any value, and will it help you reproduce that grammar point faster in the future. That answer may be yes for some, and no for others. In any case though, we want to provide enough context to allow for guessing to be a lot faster, and then let users decide for themselves what level of challenge they want.
From a personal opinion perspective, if you are cycling through 10 different but similar grammar points in your head trying to pick the right one, then it is not the best use of your time unless 1 out of those 10 is actually best suited to the sentence you’re trying to translate (this is often not the case). However for context heavy sentences where 1 grammar point really does stand head and shoulders above the rest, then it is absolutely a good use of your time to think about the sentence for a while before looking at any hints. Due to this, I’d always recommend reading any sentence in full before attempting to answer the question.
This became super long . In any case, the bottom line is that each person should study in the way that suits them best.
Personally I am a big fan of the nuance hints and I think, if they’re done well, then the Japanese hints will be a game changer. I really don’t mind if the nuance “gives away” the answer since, for me, Bunpro is all about periodically reminding me that grammar points exist in case they don’t come up often enough in my daily life. I don’t really add things that I am not already familiar from reading or life (98% of the time, at least) so Bunpro is more about polishing my understanding or artificially getting a little extra nuance. I often am reminded of a way to say something from Bunpro and I think “ah, yeah - I’ll try use this in a conversation tomorrow”. So, for me, I don’t feel cheated if I am nudged into remembering something since that is the whole point, for my work flow. Having said that, some of the nuance hints that exist for synonym differentiation are a bit on the nose but since the Japanese nuance hints are coming I really don’t mind for the moment.
I am in awe of all you guys in this thread who seem to cycle through all the possible synonyms etc. I am too impatient for that lol. Tangentially related but I have gotten native friends to try Bunpro a few times and, for any “advanced” grammar points that have multiple synonyms, they will always default to the most common/simplest way of saying it and when they are told to use a synonym they will scratch their heads since using some of these grammar points in decontextualised sentences feels unnatural or it is simply a way of speaking/writing that they would personally never or rarely use (consider せねばならない or something). From that experience, I think the nuance hints are not only essential but also that the leniency of some of those hints is kind of essential as well.
Just thought I’d offer the view of someone who prefers the nuance being first, even if a few of them are quite on the nose. But big respect to the Bunpro team for listening to the community feedback on this and giving us as many options as possible
I see. I do neither of these things so I guess I’m just not the target audience then. I treat my bunpro reviews like my Anki ones, i.e. if I don’t recall the grammar point immediately (10 seconds is the absolute maximum), I just manually fail it.
As for the literal translations (like the つまる ‘to be packed’ example), I think of them like mnemonics - it’s a nice trivia, and it can help me when I’m learning (not reviewing), but in the end, I want to think of grammar as I think of grammar in English or my native language - something I can use without thinking too much, just like as I don’t actually think of adding up numbers when I say “to sum it up”. IRL there aren’t any clues/hints when I want to say/write something, only context and my own thoughts, intentions - and the intent is better captured in the TL over the hint IMO (neither of them is perfect of course, but we’re talking about the limits of an automated system).
Anyways, thanks for clarifying. I now know that I’ll be staying with English 100%, but you have the hard data, you know what the community’s actual pain points are, which might be different from mine personally.
Can be either depending on how it is being used in the sentence, but what @HotAirGun pointed out seems like more our mistake. Should have just picked one and stuck with it . Will change the tense info to Adverb as well .
. In any case, the bottom line is that each person should study in the way that suits them best.
. Will change the tense info to Adverb as well