Feedback - Suggested Improvements/Feature Request

[CursedKitsune]

No, sorry that wasn’t my intention at all so that’s my fault if it came across that way!

I agree that Bunpro should make the questions and explanations as clear, coherent, and useful as possible and where that is missing it should be fixed. In my experience directly reporting those cases or bringing a specific query to the forums will result in change when it’s deemed necessary. Since I originally started using Bunpro there have been “quality of life” improvements of the type you’re describing and I’m sure they’ll continue to periodically happen again based on that record. That can only be a good thing so I’m with you on that.

The reason I specifically replied to the part where you mention native speakers was because, as I mentioned, they aren’t the best source in some cases (obviously in some cases they are though). Bunpro is testing for specific nuances or uses of specific phrases so it makes sense for it to sometimes be picky about the answer where a native may shrug it off. As a native they of course intuitively know the differences already but given a contextless question they may not realise it. Equally, in some cases there really isn’t a huge difference but in some cases there is a big difference but it may not be immediately apparent as the answers seem synonymous in English.

As I originally said, I have no idea of your level nor who you’re speaking to so sorry if I was off base. I just wanted to perhaps offer some reasoning for why you had the experience you had as it is something I’ve seen numerous times before and partly experienced myself. Sorry for the initial miscommunication.

[leoxs]

Placement mode

I already know some japanese, probably like 80% of N5 vocab, so I think it would be very cool to have a mode where you go through all the deck answering, and if you get it it gets placed at srs 7 or some level you chose. You could also have 2 buttons to chose where to put it depending if you know it very well or barely.

What im doing now is having to go through all the deck while I already know most of it. And also I cannot rush it because I will end up with 500 reviews a day and I don’t have enough time to do it

[Special_Guest]

The ability to add my own resources for grammar.

The bunpro team is super busy and manages to keep up with A LOT of requests, but some things (like adding a new book) take time. Such as, Genki 3rd edition as come out, and while the decks are kinda there, the grammar is not. It would be nice if I could go through the grammar as I learn it, and add where in Genki 3rd it is. Mostly because between 2nd and 3rd the difference is enough that sometimes it’s troublesome.

Or for other book resources I have that I will certainly acquire along the way in my learning. I have a few books already that focus on verb grammar and it would be nice as a reminder where I can find a more in depth explanation in a book I own.

[IcyIceBear]

Suggestion

While not taking full advantage/helping the concept of SRS, I think itd be really nice to be able to set a limit cap for available reviews on a given day. Not the limit for session reviews where you limit how many for the session. But like if I have a daily review limit set to 200 (or whatever) no reviews past that number are scheduled for a given day, and are then scheduled for the following available day so each day would have a maximum of 200. If it could take into account and give priority scheduling to lower SRS levels that’d be cool too, but understandable if not

I end up trying to power through all my reviews so my pile is empty, but at the same time I don’t want to do more than a determined amount each day. I’m playing catch up for missing days/vacation and forgotten words for large batches of vocab and I think it’d be a useful feature to have, so I can stop accidentally doing 500+ vocab to haunt me later when they’re all scheduled for the same day

[C77A1]

A thought I keep having when I do my review is that the prompts for grammar points are far too vague, necessitating the use of the note feature in a way that I’d prefer not to have to use.

An example of the ambiguity that I mean can be seen below:

The question is looking for “To have gone in order to listen to music” (音楽を聴きに行く), but there is nothing in the initial question to indicate that the question is not looking for “To have listened to music” (音楽を聴いた).

The ambiguity is resolved by using the hint mechanic, but I prefer to sight-read the question to test my gut answer to a question wherever possible, and this ambiguity prevents me from accurately doing that.

A possible solution would be to expand the prompt from “Non-past, Standard” to something along the lines of “Non-past, Standard, Destination-Transitory”, or something of that kind. As another possibility, entering an answer that is technically usable given the prompt, such as 音楽を聴いた in this case, could return a prompt to use a different grammar structure instead of grading the answer as wrong.

[db]

On my dashboard view, on the right side, above “Recent Badges”, there is a section showing “JLPT Progress”. It only shows my progress in the Grammar deck I have been using. I’d like to be able to see these summary numbers that combine Vocab and Grammar, or maybe using decks I’ve bookmarked, or even just make it selectable (like the separate progress section below shows).

I realize I can see the data in the Progress section and switch between Grammar and Vocab, but I like the scaled and shaded bar graph in JLPT Progress – just would be nice to see my combined JLPT progress for grammar+ vocab.

I’ve combed through Settings and am not seeing any obvious options for this – if I’ve missed it the feature request is probably making it easier to find.

Really enjoying using Bunpro to get my learning re-started after several resets over the last couple of years!

EDIT: This got added!!

[Keaka]

While the particualr issue you originally mentioned about it possibly being 音楽を聴いた is actually covered by the existance of the ‘Non-past’ hints, I can see the core issue you’re getting at here. This is something the content team has been discussing for a while now, and unfortunately for some simple sentences that end with verbs in this way, it’s pretty necessary to see the translation or nuance hint to figure out the response being looked for. This is a problem that stems from the way the language works itself and at the moment we haven’t found a way to work around the issue without going into overly-specific tense hints. The type of very specific hints that would be necessary here are being provided by the nuance hints as well, so it’d be doubling up on something already present.

Of course, we’re always open to suggestions, and there’s always the possibility of broadening the list of tense hints. With that being said, the rest of the content team and I will go over some potential additions to the list.

[Marifly]

I synced with Wanikani using this option: Pressing ‘sync’ will make any previously studied WaniKani Guru Vocab to be added as Seasoned 1 (SRS 7), giving you the chance for extra practice.

I’m level 15 right now and syncing gave me lots of reviews, so much so that it felt like drowning. I decided to reset Wanikani to get rid of some of the reviews (Reset vocab - Wanikani). Unfortunately that erased more than what I had synced from Wanikani. It seems like the sync from Wanikani to Bunpro takes into account what level you are and syncs only the Guru vocab. The Reset erases everything, even vocab that I have studied on Bunpro but have not yet reached on Wanikani. Before the sync and reset, I had completed the N5 deck. After the sync and reset, I lost about 200 vocab items.

Feature request 1: When doing Reset Wanikani on Bunpro, only reset the Guru vocab, similar to what the Sync from Wanikani to Bunpro does, not every vocab item in Bunpro that’s also in Wanikani.

Bonus request: Only remove the items that were synced from Wanikani, not vocab already studied on Bunpro before the sync from Wanikani, regardless of Wanikani level.

After seeing that much of my progress on the Bunpro N5 deck was gone after doing the Wanikani reset, I decided to sync from Wanikani again. That gave me back the vocab that I had studied on Wanikani, but not the vocab I had only studied on Bunpro (see above). It also gave me lots of vocab from the N4-N1 decks, as expected. I decided to reset (manually from the Vocab Reset buttons) all progress from the N4-N1 decks. That way I could focus on getting my N5 deck back to where it was.

Unfortunately, in addition to the reviews from the N5 deck, I also have lots of vocab up for review now from the Ax decks and the E1 deck. I know that those are words that are not in the Nx decks. What I would like is to reset my progress from the Ax decks and E1 deck and focus only on the N5 vocab. I can’t find a way to do that.

Feature request 2: Give us a way to reset progress from the Ax decks and the E1 deck.

Bonus request: Give us access to the Ax decks so we can see what’s in them and study them. The only way I know to access the vocab in the Ax decks is to search for vocab manually and add them to reviews (or through the Wanikani sync).

Thanks!

[C77A1]

Thank you for the reply! Looks like I could have done with some more coffee before I wrote my post… Missed the non-past prompt.

[Rukishou]

For full transparency, maybe put a small AI icon somewhere near the play button for AI/TTS generated audio? On hover you could show a short explanatio that the audio is AI/TTS generated, since just the icon might not be enough (but the whole point is to make it a small unintrusive icon). Just an idea

Could use the same icon next to AI generated example sentences for consistency too

[Rukishou]

I’d also like to reiterate my desire for an option to display pitch accent before answering/opening the extra info segment so I can practice the proper pitch and not inadvertantly reinforce smth incorrect when I read it in my head—w/o revealing the reading ofc. In line with the last point, simply including the type (平板、頭高、中高、尾高) or number notation (e. g. 0 for 平板, 1 for 頭高) might be best?

P.S. At the very least, consider moving pitch info up a bit and make it more prominent, as well as open ‘more info’ instantly on answering as the small windup (idk if it’s animation or loading, but if it’s the latter maybe preload the contents so it can display faster?), as the friction of that short wait and sometimes even having to scroll down to see it adds up and makes me gloss over pitch more often than I’d like

[C77A1]

Agree with the above, having more pitch accent information quickly available would be very useful. Would a pitch accent feature similar to what’s in place at the moment for furigana be practical to implement?

[veritas_nz]

Semi related – we silently published (post to follow) a “Disable TTS Audio” setting to the settings.

But you’re right, we should probably make it more transparent what is and isn’t TTS generated.

[Flandre5carlet]

Many, many thanks for adding an option to Daily Sync Wanikani vocabulary!
One of my pet peeves from the entire time I used Bunpro, because I’d constantly forget to sync it manually, and then when I did sync it I would get blasted with like 50 extra reviews on that day lol

However I can’t seem to find if there’s a setting for choosing whether it syncs as extra practice (Seasoned 1) or as Master anymore?

[stephane]

most likely already asked (by myself also ?)

in the decks : sort by SRS level

would make the very large vocab study decks so much more useful IMO

[quadban]

+1 to this idea!! Please?

• Adding optional checkboxes (on the left, probably) to help more quickly perform operations on them would be amazing.
• Bonus, adding a filter to hide all mastered items or only show un-started items in a deck would make this whole process even quicker. If I have 800/1100 items mastered and want to view only the remaining 300, I currently don’t know of a way to do that without going through every single page.

I’m currently wanting to go through my decks and mark a bunch of words as known so I can have a better idea of what I actually need to study next. This would be helpful for many reasons, but especially for book club decks, allowing me to get started right away on what I really need to learn.

I’m ~N3 level, so I know at least almost all the words in N5 vocab, and yet despite the WK sync, I have several hundred words in there with 0 progress. The current workflow of clicking 3 dots, move mouse and click mark as mastered, move mouse and click next 3 dots, scroll…etc is very time consuming when trying to do this for hundreds of items. Thanks for reading!

[amberglade]

Show one of the example sentences after answering a question that asks you for the English translation of a Japanese word. Right now it only shows a list of English definitions rather than also including an example sentence. It really helps me to see the word in context. I get a better sense of what the word means, how to use it, and gives me a mental image to jog my memory.

[discthrower]

Hi, I noticed that in the latest version of the bunpro ios app, the level indicator for the word or grammar point is missing.

Just wondering if this is intentional? Would it be possible to have the option to toggle it?

[Wippo]

Just a little tidbit, but I finished learning N4 Vocabulary today.
It send me to this wonderful window, where I could click the button to add a new deck (which I did).
But either it is incredibly hard to find, or you forgot to put a back to main page anywhere.
So yeah, either add it or make it easier to find.

As always thank you very much for your hard work. You are awesome!

[Sasugasm]

I think it’d be cool if the vocab reviews also contributed to the stats page.
I’d love to know how I’m doing on those across the board!