Examples in review quickly outpacing my understanding

Bunpro
#1

Hello Folks.

I can’t help but feel like i am doing something wrong here. I am wondering if any power users can either help me correct my settings or correct my method.

I have the Genki Textbooks that I have started working through. prior to getting them i’ve had a few false starts (one with bunpro on the stock path, with the murderous green owl, Renshuu, etc). so I have a fair amount of words, terms, and grammar points memorized, but nowhere near anything other than the absolute minimum survival basics. if i was suddenly teleported to Japan i’d know how to introduce myself, ask what something is, and order up to 1000 beers (like i said, survival basics).

I am coming back after months and decided to nuke my account and reset it back to 0. i loaded up specifically the Genki textbook path for Grammar and vocab and nothing else.

my difficulty is that at the start the example sentences were pretty simple and I was having fun learning by figuring things out as i go in the review. I would see a word i did not recognize, look it up on Jisho, and use the structure and grammar point I was reviewing to attempt to translate the full sentence as opposed to just looking at the hint and inserting the correct answer.

at this point however these examples are getting way too advanced, and reviews of what should be simple beginner level stuff on the Genki text are taking forever as my eyes glaze over a, sometimes fairly lengthy, example sentence full of words i’ve never encountered before.

More then ever I’m tempted to just hit the hint button for the blue word and supply the answer that i know instead of attempting to use the context clues of the example to figure it out.

should i be selecting “hard” if I don’t know if from the context clues? have i simply advanced myself into a corner?

6 Likes
#2

Hi there!

Just wanted to say that I’m concerned about this as well. I’m also doing just the Genki vocab and already finding the review sentences too difficult for me to even try to understand, so notice myself defaulting to filling in the term without trying to comprehend the context.

It’s the one thing that makes me nervous about buying a subscription, so am eager to hear from other ‘beginners’. (I also don’t understand how the hints work or are meant to help, so any advice there would be appreciated as well!*)

ETA: Just found some documentation on setting hint levels so will dig into that for answers :slight_smile:

1 Like
#3

It would be nice if there was a way to suspend specific sentences for X amount of time or, since they are all labeled by JLPT level maybe even suspend anything above a certain jlpt level for X amount of time.
But it might be worth it to add the words you don’t know to a custom vocab deck for added review. Probably best if that deck was set to translation instead of fill in the blank reviews so you don’t end up in an endless loop of adding new words so you can understand the new review examples.
In the mean time I would recommend a hover over dictionary like yomitan/10ten/yomikiri for quick look ups of unknown words without having to leave bunpro so that you can stay focused on what you’re supposed to be reviewing without getting overwhelmed with new vocab.

3 Likes
#4

ideally the SRS would not let me advance until I have learned all of the components of the review examples through both grammar and vocab (to graduate from beginner on a grammar point requires beginner in these 10 vocab, to graduate adept requires these associated 50 vocab, etc).

and I’m just familiar enough with programming to understand how big of an ask that is

2 Likes
#5

Yes and no. I see where you’re coming from, but the srs isn’t for the sentence or it’s surrounding components. It’s just for that one grammar/vocab

In the beginning, you should focus on just what’s being ask and skim the rest/yomitan it for context

Also, I think I remember seeing an add vocab to a deck/reviews directly from review sentence feature in the works

2 Likes
#6

hmmm, I see what you mean. I think potentially my biggest concern is getting swept up in a massive amount of review, so i ought to be selective in what i add and just not sweat the small stuff if I don’t understand the surrounding context / sentence.

realistically, the better way to study sentence structure would come from picking a theme and composing / reciting sentences using the words, grammar points, conjugations, etc, that I already know. so I should thank you, I think through this exchange i’ve come to realize i’m expecting too much out of the example sentences and instead I should be just using them to study what they are for.

2 Likes
#7

Unfortunately with Genki I only teaching just shy of 600 words and you still working your way through that limited list you’d be hard-pressed to find enough example sentences to effectively teach you anything.
But yeah I’d definitely be choosy about what words you add to any extra decks. If you install a frequency dictionary to yomitan it could tell you how common words are and help you decide whether you want to learn them or not.
I wouldn’t sweat it too much though, you can keep pushing through with a hover over dictionary to add context and not getting hung up on what you don’t understand outside of what you’re being quizzed on. You’ll encounter common words often enough that you’ll start remembering them. Though to speed up that process I do recommend doing some immersion as well. The more you watch/read the more likely you are to encounter the same words at intervals that are actually useful for learning.
Learning a new language is very much an exercise is patience and learning to be comfortable with not understanding everything all the time.

1 Like
#8

For both grammar and vocab, think in terms of 〇〇 if you don’t know a particular vocab. Is it acting as a noun? Verb? な-Adjective? As long as you fill in the answer correctly for the specific section, you are good.

If you find a word you don’t know, add it to your reviews manually in Bunpro if you think it will be helpful going forward.

Example: これは燕尾服です

Translation: This is a/an 燕尾服. Doesn’t matter if you know what it is or not - you know これ, は and です that’s good enough.

Eventually you’re going to need to practice getting the gist of things and expanding the space of the knowledge in your periphery. You can’t memorize or learn everything, just like with English or whatever language you started with.

English Example: “lacrimal gland” in isolation is hard to understand. But let’s add context

You’re talking to an eye doctor! Oh! It’s probably an issue with my eye.
“Your eye is not moist enough!” Oh! Then it makes tears!

Later you see the word “lacrimasion” and go ~ “Oh! I know what a lacrimal gland is! Maybe lacrimasion means making tears! Wait… shouldn’t it be lacrimation instead?” :slight_smile:

5 Likes
#9

Off topic but I came across the word “translacrimate” for the first time the other day and this just reminded me of it.

3 Likes
#10

True, it’s not a lot to start from. I can always look up a word I don’t know if I can’t work around it when building a sentence. I used to do this early on and it was one of the most effective ways for me to learn as I had investment in it. If I think the word is common enough I can add it to a review, if not I’m fine with letting it lapse.

What I might do is try to build an English study key to remind myself what grammar points and vocab I should know, and ultimately attempt to make some kind of daily diary entry using them

If I keep it relevant to my daily activities, in theory, It should help me learn how to converse about day to day activities.

I should at some point mention that I am certified in teaching English as a second language. So part of this is me attempting to learn the language essentially by building lesson plans in reverse.

And excellent point about being comfortable in not knowing something, I tend to get caught on details a lot, as I want to make sure it’s “correct”. That being said it might be fun to be able to review a diary in a few years time and see day to day progression.

1 Like
#11

What review method are you using? For vocabulary, I’ve set it to reading. I found fill-in for vocabulary to be counterproductive as it takes way too long, and it doesn’t help with kanji knowledge, since the kanji appears at the very end and you’re likely to just skip it. If you go down this route you really just need to understand the vocabulary tested and not the surrounding words, albeit they help form context around the specific vocabulary.

3 Likes
#12

you just saved me a ton of headache my friend. I didn’t even know i could change this setting. I’m keeping Fill-in for Grammar but i’ve switched vocab to translation and on both methods i’ve switched it to manual input. this feels much closer to what i want it to be.

in the future i might switch it back, or find a way to drill conjugation. I feel like that is more on the grammar side of things however and that i’ll keep getting plenty of practice keeping that as fill-in.

2 Likes
#13

For conjugation drills this site might be helpful. I found it on the WaniKani forum, but IIRC you don’t need an API from there. It runs endlessly, so you can stop and continue the drill whenever you want.

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Here are some information about this website, sneakily screenshotted from the WaniKani forum :shushing_face:

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In case you are also on WaniKani, here’s the link to said forum thread.

Hope that helps a bit. :slightly_smiling_face:

7 Likes
#14

Damn that is great!!
So many different things to study and ways of study…
Bookmarked

1 Like
#15

Maybe do a core deck like https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2141233552 or https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2141233552

These decks use example sentences containing only words you already know. I used Jalup which died last year :frowning:

Once you know 1,000 words in a rail-roaded order- then I would try something like Netflix, bunpro, nihongo con teppei, where you come across words out of order.