Bunpro reviews and the usage of は with 何

[Munroe]

Didn’t know exactly which category this is in and maybe it should be broken up so let me know if anything is wrong.

So I’ve just started using Bunpro and in one of the reviews I entered in は instead of が, however the hint that appeared confused me

(Ignore that I’ve written が , I took the picture after correcting myself)

The hint mentions 何 but that’s not in the sentence at all. So not sure if that’s a problem with Bunpro’s hints or I’m just misunderstanding.

The other thing is that the hint says you can’t use は with 何 but isn’t the following an acceptable sentence: これは何ですか

As to say, what is this?

Thanks for any enlightenment

[nekoyama]

@Munroe

The other thing is that the hint says you can’t use は with 何 but isn’t the following an acceptable sentence: これは何ですか

The hint probably means 何 before the は. But strictly speaking that’s also not 100% correct because of things like 何はともあれ or (content warning) 彼の何は20cmあった

[Jose7822]

@Munroe

The hint mentions 何 but that’s not in the sentence at all. So not sure if that’s a problem with Bunpro’s hints or I’m just misunderstanding.

That looks like a mistake indeed. I’m sure they meant to write それ not 何.

@Munroe

The other thing is that the hint says you can’t use は with 何 but isn’t the following an acceptable sentence: これは何ですか

What they mean is you can’t use は AFTER 何, or as a topic marker for it, because 何 is an unknown. In fact, you can’t use は after any question words, for the same reason. In your example, は is after これ, but BEFORE 何, so that’s completely acceptable.

EDIT: Keep in mind that particles, like は、が、を、で、etc, mark the word(s) that comes before them [not the word(s) after]. So, in your example, は is marking これ as the topic in that sentence.

HTH!

[Munroe]

Thanks that does, think that mistake made things confusing. Does Bunpro have a way of reporting issues?

[Jose7822]

To be honest, this is something I haven’t done before (though I plan to change that moving forward). For that reason, I don’t know if there’s a way to report bugs directly from the review page, but I do know that you can report them from the grammar page.

For instance, there are 3 dots next to each example sentence. Clicking that will reveal a few options, the bug report being one of them:

Additionally, there’s a bug report button at the bottom of the page for each grammar point:

HTH!

[wct]

It appears to me that this warning was written with a different sentence in mind, and was mistakenly copied onto the sentence you were answering. Probably didn’t get noticed because it involves a ‘exceptional’ condition (answering specifically は).

In such cases, when things don’t make sense like this, you can definitely continue to post the issue on the forums as you’ve done here, or you can use the “Report” button, marked by a during reviews:

Note, this screenshot is from a web browser. I don’t know if it looks the same on mobile, or if it’s even available or not.

But if it is available on your device, this is the most direct way to report an issue, and gets treated like a proper bug report, plus you’ll get replies in your User menu > Your Feedback section.

Also, there are two dedicated threads for posting bugs (Feedback - Bug Reports) and suggestions (Feedback - Suggested Improvements/Feature Request). This is less direct than the Report button, but it’s publicly visible and others can chime in if they have the same issue or give a like , etc.

[Jose7822]

Unfortunately that’s not the case on mobile (at least not on an iPad):

I have buttons on the top left, but not the bug one. Clicking on settings doesn’t reveal it either. It’s simply not there.