Example sentence overhaul

Bunpro
#1

I’ve seen on the forum that this is a known issue, but I’m increasingly finding the example sentence still unhelpful. I would love to see some core concepts applied to them:

  • Initial example sentences in the lesson should use only basic vocab and grammar concepts, so that only the grammar point in the lesson is new, ie. basic N5 grammar and Top 300 vocab only

  • Subsequent example sentences in the lesson should only slowly expand out to include previously covered grammar, and incrementally rarer words, so that the different points of the grammar are highlighted without distracting the student with unfamiliar grammar and vocab

  • Review sentences should follow similar principles, allowing for the review of previously learned grammar in conjunction with the new, and only the final example sentences including rarer n+1 unknown vocab

It is not hard to find lessons that violate these guidelines. In N3, many of the sentences only drill me on the grammar point in question, but the rest of the sentence is full of grammar points that are not introduced until later in Bunpro’s own sequence, and rare vocab. I’ve been able to hang, but there is such a difference in the learning quality and retention between sentences I can nail (because I’ve been properly introduced to everything in the sentence already) versus the ones that are full of unfamiliar concepts.

Ideally, Bunpro would be able to “unlock” more and more sentences as you progress through the skill tree of grammar and vocab, but since that would take a lot of development, I think it’s reasonable to check the sentences in each grammar lesson and totally overhaul them so that they are comprehensible to students who are working through their own system.

#2

Thanks for the feedback! Could you point out a couple examples you know that are using grammar not covered in the previous lessons please? I will take a look and see if there is a pattern there or if it was just overlooked.

#3

Not completely related to the thread, but: I’m following the tae-kim deck instead of going by N-levels so I found quite a few situations where I was expected to produce grammar points that weren’t introduced yet. I just accepted it as “what I signed up for” by following a non-standard path. Though most of them were extremely common grammar points that I already had picked up otherwise. Even if I didn’t know the precise rules to reproduce them.

However, I would have probably not followed the tae kim deck if bunpro gave me a warning that this and this would happen if I followed a book-based path during the first setup.

#4

Hi Jake!

I’d love to be more helpful, but I’d say that there are many of them, and I haven’t been taking the time to log them all. Unfamiliar grammar. Translations for grammar points that aren’t described in the lesson. Mixing multiple tough grammar points early in the example sentences. Drills feel like a slog, because it’s tough to hone in on what I do or don’t know to give it my best shot and get the most out of it. Sometimes, I have to ignore everything except for the highlighted grammar point, which isn’t helpful, and potentially leads to the graphs misrepresenting my skills.

One suggestion: make all the first several examine sentences as uniform as possible, so that only the new grammar point changes. Same subject and verb, or only words from the Top 500 vocab list.

猫がいます。
猫は赤いです。
猫は赤いですね。
猫はどこですか？
猫はここです。
猫は魚が好きです。
猫は肉が好きじゃないです。
…
猫は魚とか、肉とか、色々のものを食べたい。
猫は魚、肉などを食べたい。
猫はいつものように魚を食べる。
なと…

(Probably goot something wrong in there, sorry, really flexing my limited early-N3 skills there.) Something like that would help lock in the key concept before (gradually) branching out into rarer vocab, and mixing different grammar points. Far from this kind of gradual progression, a custody review of the sentences would show the issues I identified above, which decreases the effectiveness of the tool. I’ve been thinking lately that maybe I should just use Chatgpt to make my own practice sentences along this vein.