Feedback - Suggested Improvements/Feature Request

Bunpro
#693

A lot of grammar points have 3-4 structure rules describing how the rule can use nouns, verbs, い/な-adjectives, but at least in the N5-N4 rules, 90%+ of them appear to fall into 2 cases - an attributive clause (plain form verb, い-adjective, noun の･な, な-adjective な) or a predicative clause (plain form verb, い-adjective, noun だ, な-adjective だ). I’m not sure that is the proper nomenclature, but I’m pretty certain the rules are consistent.

I think it would feel a lot simpler and more flexible for users if these two groups were defined in the glossary and referenced, and exceptions noted, rather than listing all cases every time.

1 Like
#694

I prefer them listed every time. I hate when grammar sources like Tobira say “this grammar point follows rule A”. I don’t know what that rule is and now I have to cross reference it to understand how the grammar point works.

1 Like
#695

To me, these are at the same level of generality as Verb-て. They are consistent throughout Japanese grammar. Just as I think it would be too noisy to list the rules for て-form every time, so do I find it noisy to list these. It makes it much harder to pinpoint the few cases which are the exception.

In the same vein, I wish there were grammar points explicitly addressing copulas (な, だ, -い, -く, etc.). If you treat them as irregular verbs they fit directly into most rules that deal with verbs (e.g. -たら)

1 Like
#696

I agree, those A, B, C rules are just confusing and don’t help understanding the grammar. I also find Bunpro’s additional structure explanations most of the time way too confusing because of the excessive use of A, B and C which isn’t meaningful at all.

Yes, this way it would be a lot easier to recognize AND memorize exceptions. Bunpro could just keep it simple with one sentence, for example, for all the grammar points starting with 〜はず、こと etc:
“Conjugated like a NOUN”
Then it’s clear that it’s the standard conjugation with の and な for nouns and na-adjectives. Clicking on the sentence “Conjugated like a NOUN” could then expand the list with the individual conjugations below it.

3 Likes
#697

A few things.

So, the part in the blank area that sometimes says things like "polite’ and whatnot would be better if they were above the blank part, that way they don’t disappear when I start typing.

iru/eru 一段と五段 drills. mixing these up has been my number one reason for screwing up a review. I would love it if there was just a cram option for converting an iru/eru verb into its て-form to practicing memorizing which ones are 五段 and which are 一段.

Swap the Examples and Readings tabs? Seems kind of silly to have the example sentences before the readings even if you can just freely click between them, but this might just be the perfectionist in me.

Trying to search “imperative” doesn’t bring up the imperative form. It doesn’t bring up anything at all.

3 Likes
#698

For Cram, would it be possible to set a default landing page, or have it correspond with your study setting selection? It just gets to be a lot of click time each new time I visit the page, to have to click N3 and deselect N5.

3 Likes
#699

58%20
Screen Shot 2019-11-28 at 12.54.58 .png867×172 16.2 KB

I just came to a grammar point where you divided verbs into different groups as is often done to help with conjugations, but would you please, please, please NOT use the Group I, II, III designations?

Because the way I learned those designations are different than how the place you linked to calls them. (Red shows how I learned them. Group 1 is 2 and 2 is 1.)

35%20
Screen Shot 2019-11-28 at 12.55.35 .png752×381 46.5 KB

Why not use the proper Japanese terms and explain those instead? Godan and ichidan (and exceptions? Not sure what they call suru and kuru) are not made up and therefore different resources do NOT define them differently.

Perhaps Group 1,2,3 have been used before on BP and I missed it, or perhaps it is new. In either case, there is really no good reason to use an arbitrary label that means nothing and is in fact used differently in different textbooks/sources.

Also I believe いたす’s structure for Group III verbs are wrong or at least somewhat strange since する becomes いたす and not しいたす or いたしいたす as far as I understand. Perhaps it would need a bit of revising.

7 Likes
#700

Hello there,

first of all: Thank you for creating and improving Bunpro. It’s a great service and helps me a ton.

I like to study new material quite thoroughly, writing down all example sentences by hand, reading more on topics I dont unterstand and all that kind of stuff. The problem is that my brain tends to shut off after 1, on a good day 2, new items because of the extensive time I need to dig through the new material.
I’d really like to lower the lesson batch size but 3 is the minimum.

Would it be possible to add a 1 and 2 batch option or is there a reason I can’t see yet why it’d be a bad idea?

3 Likes
#701

Can search work for both kanji and kana? I just searched up を始め and there was nothing unless I typed をはじめ.

3 Likes
#702

It does if they’ve included both versions. I think をはじめ is usually used in kana(?) so that could be why the kanji version wasn’t included.

2 Likes
#703

I just got lucky then I guess, haha. My book has it written in kanji, and I usually auto hit space which made the kanji, which was how I noticed.

1 Like
#704

@Humin Thank you for your feedback and suggestions! We are working on how the hints that appear in the answer blank display once you start typing an answer. We want it to be intuitive and unobtrusive. We hope to have something available for everyone soon.

In the future, we would like to add special “fundamental” reviews that would allow you to thoroughly practice verb conjugations and the like. In the meantime, check out this awesome site dedicated to just that!

The readings are meant to further expand upon what you have learned in the Meaning page and what you can derive from the sentences that you have read in Examples. Since Japanese grammar is best learned by seeing it being used in different contexts, we would like everyone to try to derive meaning from the sentences that they read first, before looking for additional information.

While we have the prohibitive form on Bunpro, we do not yet have the imperative form. We hope to add it soon. Cheers!

@conan

This is a cool idea! We will see if we can figure something out.

Try it out again!

@MissDagger Thank you for your feedback. I have updated the structure section of this grammar point to hopefully prevent any further confusion. Thank you for drawing this to our attention. Cheers!

@holycow273 Thank you for the kind words! The reason that we added a minimum setting for batch size is because it can work against the SRS. If you are only studying one or two items at a time, it will be easier to determine the answer since you have nothing else to compare it to. It sounds like it might be better to simply go to Grammar, Lessons and select a grammar point to study. When you feel confident that you understand the grammar point you can add it to your reviews and do not have to be quizzed on it immediately. This way, if you decide to study more than one or two grammar points, you can still quiz yourself on them, but you do not have to do it immediately (like the quiz at the end of study), you simply click reviews when you have multiple items in your review queue. Cheers!

6 Likes
#705

Y’all are the literal best, thank you!!

5 Likes
#706

@Pushindawood Can we get a grammar point for ～となる? The nuances between that and になる are a bit hard to follow, so some practice on it would be great. Both my grammar dictionaries gave very lackluster explanations and no comparison between the two, but I did find this:

7 Likes
#707

We can do something about it :sunglasses::+1:

7 Likes
#708

I’m not sure if this is something other people would enjoy but for me “presets” for cramming would be nice. It’s a pain to have to go through my grammar points and choose what to cram, every time I want to cram. It would be cool if you could make a preset that you can change at anytime, that you can just choose.

ie: I put passive, te form, plain form, causative in my preset.

I exit Bunpro, and an hour later I get back on to do some studying. I go to cram, click my preset, and I already am ready to roll. Obviously this isn’t ideal if you only are cramming a few topics.

4 Likes
#709

It would also be nice to have a way to sort grammar points during the selection stage, for example by the time it was added by a user, by bookmarks or by Bunpro grammar order. The way it is now we have no way to find the required grammar point in a giant mountain of flashcards other than using the browser’s search function.

3 Likes
#710

When cycling through the hints, wouldn’t it be better to collapse all of the empty whitespace when the user is toggled to “no hint?” (Maybe a single blank line should be left so that the answer field typically won’t have to jump when toggling to the first hint.)

It’s just obnoxious when the page looks like this:

image
image.png1750×677 36.7 KB

3 Likes
#711

@Pushindawood I enabled vacation mode and now I can’t see my SRS progress on individual item pages. Could you still show that information even when vacation mode is enabled.

1 Like
#712

How about a badge for a 1 year review streak?

Not that I know anyone who just did that… :grinning:

Thanks for creating a site with enough value to me that I would use it every day to help learn Japanese!!!

6 Likes