Confusion surrounding how tenses are taught

Bunpro
#1

Hi all,
first time poster and new user of Bunpro. I have some confusion surrounding how the grammar is taught. I am currently on Chapter 8 of Genki 1 and have recently just started using Bunpro to drill the grammar points I learn from the textbook. One thing that I have noticed is that the Genki grammar deck is not 100% 1:1 with the Bunpro grammar that I’m being quizzed on. Mainly this is due to a difference in politeness levels and tenses. I seem to often get stuck on a question that may require a politeness or tense that I haven’t covered yet in the book, but strangely Bunpro doesn’t seem to mention it in the “information” part of the question.

My example is the grammar point “と思う”。In Genki it is taught as the polite form “と思います” but reading the Bunpro explanation it is easy enough to understand the polite version, the short version and why だ is added in some cases (da has not been mentioned in Genki at all yet, maybe it’s in a later lesson). These are all issues that can be overcome with a bit of reading on the Bunpro explanation.

The big issues that I’m having with this particular example is the past tense. Doing a quick Google search shows that in the next chapter of the Genki textbook, short form past tense is covered, but it is not explained in the Bunpro grammar point. How am I supposed to know what the short form past tense of “と思う” is if Bunpro hasn’t explained it yet?

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#2

I had many similar problems when using only the Genki deck to learn in Bunpro. Adding Bunpro’s own grammar deck to my queue quickly helped fill in the gaps.

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#3

Bunpro grammar is written in such a way that if you follow the Bunpro order then everything should be i+1 (there should only ever be one new thing added). If you follow the Bunpro order then this should always be true (and if it isn’t then please report it and we’ll try to fix it!).

If you follow one of the non-Bunpro grammar decks then you may find some grammar points skipped over or out of order, as the deck/textbook has its own order. They can be used as supplements to textbook study but the Bunpro explanations and examples still follow the Bunpro order, not the textbook one.

I may be biased here but if you have the time and motivation then I’d personally suggest following the Bunpro order on Bunpro and using Genki alongside it to support your studies.

Hopefully that helps and perhaps other users with a similar experience can chip in with their thoughts and what they did!

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#4

Hi James, thanks for taking the time to answer my question. It’s a shame that the reviews can’t be more directly linked to what has been learned. It makes the decks feature seem a bit useless if the recommendation is just to stick to the Bunpro order. Unless I’m misunderstanding of course. The intent was for Bunpro to supplement Genki, not the other way around. どうもありがとうございます。

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#5

as someone who absolutely tortured himself through the Tae Kim deck, I absolutely and 100% agree. If I could go back in time, I would pick the Bunpro order right away for a lot of reasons.

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#6

I do agree that review sentences should have some kind of tag attached to them that marks which grammar points are necessary, and displays them based on which ones are in your reviews. (And if you haven’t added any of the tagged points, it operates as if you’d learned them all)

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#7

I wouldn’t think of Bunpro as a Genki supplement. There is far more grammar and vocab in just N5/N4 than Genki 1+2 combined.

If anything I’d think of Genki as a source of practice exercises, and secondary explanations for some of your Bunpro lessons.

I also started with Genki, and I like Bunpro’s teaching order more than Genki’s. Unless your goal is class/grade oriented, I think you’re better off switching what is primary in your head.

My recommendation is walk the Bunpro path, keep an eye on your Genki deck. When a chapter is done, open your textbook and do the exercises. Get the most out of both tools. がんばって！

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#8

though there is also the fact that a lot of bunpro grammar isn’t covered as a dedicated grammar point in most other resources. I’m halfway through N3 on bunpro but going through the rest of the deck, I realized I already “know” ca. 70% of the remaining N3 grammar items either because I’ve heard them often enough in immersion, or more commonly because they were covered as vocab and there’s not all that much more to apply to it.

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#9

I also started using Bunpro after reaching Chapter 8 of Genki, and I don’t remember having had particular difficulties. Maybe just add also the bunpro N5 grammar deck and check for some holes not covered by Genki

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#10

An example of a grammar point being presented out of order in bunpro is in lesson 4:9 of N4 (ようになる). It instructs the reader to use the potential form (れる/られる), but this form isn’t actually introduced until later, in lesson 8:7.
Even though it’s understandable, it’s still a bit confusing.

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#11

Fortunately, だ and と思う are in lesson 8 of Genki

You can remember だ from if the word took ではありません→じゃない in Chapter 5, it’s だ now. And では sounds kinda like だ

Genki calls it “short form” and bunpro says “could you say this more casually?”

Also words with two kanji often conjugate like nouns [洗濯する, 勉強する, 綺麗な, 元気な] and use the onyomi.

And ない is a い adjective so
寒い→寒かった is the same as
元気じゃない→元気じゃなかった

元気だった
Hope that helps

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#12

I think the recommendation is to stick to the Bunpro order if you’re a beginner. I’ve had no problems picking and choosing grammar points however I like as an intermediate/high intermediate learner, but that’s because I have a solid foundation. After that, I really don’t think it matters as much.

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#13

Items out of order come up in forum questions sometimes, if this is something BP team wants to refine further.
For example:

It’s probably difficult to make everything i+1, especially in N5/N4.

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#14

oh, it’s the lizardboy!

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#15

We want everything to be i+1 (in terms of grammar) so please do let us know about anything that you think isn’t and we will try get it sorted. The only exceptions are when we deliberately throw ahead to future lessons as part of an explanation.