Bunpro Summary for vocab

Is this a new feature? Looks fantastic.

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Hi, and thanks for posting on the forums! The information itself is not new, but the implementation on the vocab page is.

For several years now, we have had nuance hints that appear either in Japanese or in English to help with guessing vocabulary or grammar during reviews. Due to many users requesting that we add this information to the vocab/grammar itself over the years, that is exactly what we have done! Please note that not all vocab has hints/summaries yet, but we’re making great pace to get these all out as soon as possible.

This information will still appear within reviews to help jog your memory if sometimes the sentence translation and target word is not enough to help narrow down the possibilities.

The intention with these descriptions is basically to behave in the same way a learner’s dictionary would for any given language. A nice succinct description that isn’t too over the top, and should be able to be read by anyone around the B1 (European) or N3 (JLPT) level.

It is definitely recommended to try setting your in-app language to Japanese as soon as you feel semi-confident reading these, as they are a fantastic way to get in a bit of extra reading practice, and an even better way to help you get a sense for how to describe different words in Japanese :partying_face:.

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I think Asher summed it up really well, but I’ve been working with @Fuga on fine-tuning our hints for N3-N1 and trying to come up with concise phrasing that provides more context for when and how these words are typically used. I’m really glad to hear you’re finding them helpful!

As Asher mentioned, these aren’t meant to be comprehensive “definitions” that cover every nuance or use case as that would be impossible. But they definitely offer more clarity than you’d get from just looking up a word in something like Jisho.

I also use Bunpro to study, and aside from a private tutor once a week, I’ve been entirely self-taught, so I’ve tried to draw from my own experience, especially with words I personally struggled to grasp. These nuance hints have absolutely helped my retention, and adding them directly to the vocabulary pages is a big step forward for our system.

I believe everything up through N2 and just over 50% of N1 now includes these hints, with the rest of N1 actively being worked on. As always, if you come across a hint that’s confusing or could use improvement, we’d love your feedback.

Also, I’ve been working with Bunpro since February and was formerly JBrat96 here on the forums. I guess this is my official introduction! :bowing_man:

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