Bunpro seems tooo hard

Bunpro
#54

Sorry if I made assumptions, but brashness and attitude can be difficult to determine in a text based space. I can see where you are totally coming from, but you’re clearly stating what works for you, and if it works for you then that’s great.

But what I was posting is based on my time working with students and seeing what works and doesn’t work overall. While I did find some frustration in core 2000 and 6000 decks with vocabulary I didn’t use much at the time, it was more beneficial then trying to play Persona 4 and looking up every word. I wasn’t even enjoying the game at that point. After going through the core decks, I am able to play and read through most things, and pick up on the words I don’t know. Doing it the other way around was too frustrating for me and in my experience has been more frustrating for learners overall.

I feel that this method would work for the OP more because they clearly need some guidance. I could be wrong, but it’s worked for me and many, many people. Yes, now I do make ridiculous, information filled flashcards that I would only recommend こだわり過ぎ people to make, but I had a foundation to build upon.

Ah well. 十人十色 I guess. Back to immersing.

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#55

Yeah, I can’t imagine playing a video game, or reading a manga/novel, and trying to create flash cards out of every word. That wouldn’t be enjoyable at all.

At least at first, I think most people would benefit from getting core words under their belt, through SRS, BEFORE getting to the point of mining sentences and creating custom flash cards. I think this would make learning further vocabulary much easier, and even more so once you have a good Kanji foundation. As I mentioned earlier, Kanji knowledge is the key to unlocking vocabulary.

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#56

At this point, I’m pretty sure OP is probably having second thoughts about learning Japanese at all.

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#57

The time it takes me to do anything on bunpro is like 3-4 times longer than wanikani. I know about 237 kanji on WaniKani but Bunpro I just look at it and it feels very overwhelming. Nothing in bunpro is structured on top of each other like you would do when learning mathematics. If you’re goal is to learn Multivariable Calc, you don’t start out by learning Calc 1. You first need to know basic arithmetic and then build on other classes from there. Bunpro should be structured like this to follow standard teaching practices.

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#58

image

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#59

Believe it or not languages are not maths (although maths is a part of language). You can’t establish a language from first principles. Natural languages can generate new things without reference to rules and although meaning implies some form of rule following the rules are defined by meaningful usage and not the other way around.

Bunpro also actually is structured in an extremely forgiving way that does follow standard teaching practices for Japanese and for language pedagogy. There aren’t too many ways it could be simplified further without being turned into something extremely boring and therefore not useful.

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#60

not trying to be mean to Wanikani, but i have stopped using it. while I think its much better than duolingo or other apps to learn kanji/words i still dropped it for these reasons:

I don’t think learning words in a vacuum is very wise. learn all the on’yomi and kun’yomi you want, will you be able to use them correctly without working with them in proper sentences?

you have way better ways to set up a cram list on bunpro. sure you can always set up 3rd party practice flashcards etc, but the lack of effective first party training should be noted.

the order you learn things in is honestly not good for learning to speak fast. and from learning other languages im a big believer in learning to communicate fast. speaking/writing sentences is one of the most effective ways to learn. and even after 400 words you still have not learned many of the common words for first time writers/talkers like watashi.

i’m going to try out bunpro for grammar and vocab now, while using the book “Remembering the Kanji” as side project for practicing kanji/radicals.

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#61

The main purpose of Wanikani is to learn Kanji, so the vocabulary that’s there is used to make it easier to remember the different readings of a Kanji. Each word has at least one sentence with English translations, so that you can see the word used in context.

Again, learning core vocabulary is not really the purpose words serve in Wanikani. Also, if communication is most important to you, Wanikani is obviously not gonna help much with that.

You know what’s not gonna help you read Japanese? Remembering the Kanji. Sure, you’ll know what each Kanji means, but you’ll be done with it and not be able to read a lick of Japanese. At least not with just book I, which is as far as most people seem to go with it.

Anyway, it’s fine if you didn’t jive with Wanikani and want to try something different, but I needed to clear things up.

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#62

you were completely fair. I was measuring wanikani based on certain traits that others may not focus on or want from the site.

edit: that said i was focusing on wanikani as a site for vocab. so i dont think i was wrong in my statements.

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#63

Things are starting to heat up. Not only is it Wrestlemana week, it’s apparently Bunpromania week as well.

“文プロマニアの全員、熱心に盛り上がれ”

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#64

Let’s just make sure we keep everything on track here folks. Remember that even though it is far easier to attack a person than an idea, that approach is not really helpful at all for anyone involved.

There is a lot to be said about scientific studies into the way that ‘learning’ happens, and what methods usually result in the fastest absorption of any particular knowledge. However, basically all of these methods fall apart when confronted with what exists at the terminal end of learning. The individual.

Bunpro has strengths and weaknesses
Wanikanai has strengths and weaknesses
Anki has strengths and weaknesses

All of these statements are terminal end assertions based on the individual themselves, rather than the actual platform. What would be better would be -

Bunpro doesn’t work well with my strengths and weaknesses
Wanikanai doesn’t work well with my strengths and weaknesses
Anki doesn’t work well with my strengths and weaknesses

Study with whatever you have the most fun with and whatever makes something stick for you. If you actively want to use a platfrom/resource but find that whatever that platform is doesn’t really gel with you, all you need to do is think about something that does actually work for you, and then figure out what the difference between the two are. After figuring that part out, try to approach the problem material again in a way that works for you. If you can’t do that, you need to make the choice about whether to keep going, or whether to reevaluate your study tools. Not everything will always feel comfortable, but results will always overwrite any feelings of temporary discomfort.

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#65

What I’ve found that makes bunpro VOCAB harder than it has to be is
Many people (including me) look at the English keyword, or Japanese highlited word and type in the closest 1:1 translation. such as
起きる written ‘pick up’ [instead of ‘get up’] 拾う which I learned as ‘pick up’ was wrong.
or school was 群れ (school of fish) not 学校

I would recomend using the ‘translation’ type vocab answer if you are having this same problem, then listening cram when you can to get those amazing voiced sentences goodness.

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#66

I’ve used Bunpro for several years and I still feel this way a lot. It’s important to remember that it’s supposed to be hard. The way brains are wired, the only way to get lasting gains is to strategically frustrate yourself. That in general is why spaced repetition works the way it does.

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#67

I did remembering the kanji first and found it useful

It helped me read menus, ingredients lists, and reading shop names written in kanji like the bubble tea shop ‘tiger sugar’ is 老虎堂黒糖博売

老 old 虎 tiger 堂 amount 黒 black 糖 sugar 博 specialty 売 sell
A tiger amount of black sugar shop. because the molasses looks like tiger stripes!
It felt magical.

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#68

Well, sure it can be annoying.
That said, by looking the keyword and trying a 1:1 translation you’re not taking advantage of the cloze type reviews
I’d say you’d better try to grasp the general meaning of the sentence and infer what’s expected. It takes way more time to go through reviews, but it’s way more useful. At least to me.

Of course that would not work in every cases, but let’s not forget a word can have several (too much ?) meanings, especially in Japanese. And well…idioms !
I think it’s a good thing Bunpro show those alternative ones in context too. There’s ton of them and I can’t count how many times I’ve been like “oh ok, it can be used that way”. So you get it wrong two or three times and then just come to understand it’s part of the meaning of the word.

Edit : What I do find annoying is that those less obvious meanings are often not even mentioned.
Oh, and synonym-ish words. :pensive:

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#69

Yeah, I know. but I keep doing it anyways. Better to mitigate than wish on it I suppose…

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#70

Good quote which has given me a spurt of motivation just as I was thinking of taking it easy this evening.

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#71

People do say this but I am not convinced it does teach people to read. Back in the 70s when learning to recognise and write kanji would have been important for learners I think perhaps it was a fine system but the use is redundant given smartphones. This is my opinion, at least. Plenty of people have done RTK and gone on to actually learn to read properly later though so it clearly has some utility. These things are near impossible to evaluate well and as Asher says above different things work for different people at different times so I would be reticent to reject it wholly but more modern kanji writing and learning systems like Kanji in Context or KKLC would be where I would recommened people to look before going to RTK.

Also I think 老虎堂黒糖博売 is Chinese and not Japanese (not a joke). Also I am not aware of a word where 堂 means “amount” but I am no kanji master. Is that the RTK keyword?

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#72

@CursedKitsune basically covered everything I was gonna say, except I’d also recommend Wanikani for Kanji learning, but that’s my personal preference (of course).

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#73

This feels apt:

How to really learn a language

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