Frustration - is it just me?

Bunpro
#1

I’ve posted this in one of the other sections, the specific topic thread, but I’ll cross-post here if it’s okay because I would like some feedback.

There is something that I find a little frustrating about bunpro.

I want to learn the details and specifics of words/kanji/grammar, but then I read an N5 sentence where the translation is “the gist” of the meaning rather than a more precise translation, and there is nothing to indicate this.

[specifically talking about "学生たちは先生の話も聞きます。

The students listen to the teachers also."

What is の話 doing in this sentence? It doesn’t seem to appear in the translation.]

I already knew hanashi as story/talk/tale, so I could infer that the actual translation should be more along the lines of “what the teachers are saying”, but bunpro doesn’t indicate this. If this were a sentence with unfamiliar words or grammar then I would be lost if I tried to use it to learn from. I would be more likely to pick up bad habits.

There are other apps, such as kanjistudy or elon.io that use example sentences but also allow the reader to click on each individual word to find out what purpose it serves in the sentence, in terms of meaning and syntax.

I am still in the 30-day trial period before deciding whether to buy, but I am wondering if bunpro is the one for me.

#2

(だれかの)話を聞く is like an idiom that means “to listen to what someone has to say”. Without it, the sentence 学生たちは先生も聞きます is a bit vague. Are the students asking the teacher something? Are they listening to the teacher? Are they obeying some instructions? The の話 makes it clear what is going on.

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#3

I agree that this what is said in the Japanese, but it is not made clear in the English translation nor in Bunpro’s explanation.

A deeper knowledge of Japanese is needed to understand this, beyond what the Bunpro translation is teaching.

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#4

Hopefully I can provide a little clarity here! First thing’s first though, thanks for giving Bunpro a try.

To address your confusion regarding the translation, I agree that it could be a little more precise, particularly reflecting the nuance of の話. Something like “Students also listen to the teachers conversation”.

Moving onto the “why” behind the current translation. While we have guidelines for our translation process, we have real humans doing the translation of these example sentences. We do this for tens of thousands of example sentences. Due to that, there is room for occasional human error, or in this case a more general translation.

In regards to a feature that allows you to parse out a sentence, we do offer that to some degree on our grammar vocab sentences. You can click on a piece of grammar that appears within a grammar point example sentence, then go to that page and read more about it. I believe the reason this has not been implemented on a much larger scale is because we want to make sure everything we put out is high-quality and reviewed, so implementing a tool that breaks down tens of thousands of sentences may not be practical. However, it is definitely something the team can discuss to see if we can come up with more effective tools for parsing out sentences!

One last point I’ll make is that there is no single resource to use for Japanese. I would encourage finding what works best for you and using that. It will probably end up being a variety of resources! Every tool has it’s strong points. The one thing I will mention about Bunpro, is we do not throw out any raw, unfiltered AI-generated content. We have a human team behind everything we put out. The first thing that I saw when I looked at the Japanese course you linked to was “This course was AI generated”. That is not the case with Bunpro. Whether that is a good thing or not is up to you!

Sorry if that got a little long-winded! In summary, sorry for the slightly imprecise translation (if you link the exact grammar/vocabulary it is used in I can update the translation for you), we may not have the specific tool you are looking for, but it is something our team will definitely discuss, and we want to help you figure out what works best when it comes to your studies. Also, if you find any inconsistencies with translations, please feel free to submit feedback regarding them and we can help straighten things out!

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#5

Thanks for the detailed response!

I agree with you, I am finding that there is no single resource that covers everything I want. It’s a question of finding the best combo :slight_smile:

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#6

I’ve found that there are a lot of instances in both English and Japanese where one form of the same sentence is a bit condensed or expanded for whatever reason, such as the example you’ve given

Usually I just make a note of the difference but try and focus on the specific vocab word or grammar point instead. As a native English speaker, there are many instances where I’ll say something and not know the exact reason something is said a specific way (Like, off the top of my head, the phrase “Jim took off running”. Nobody ever explained this specific term, but I know it and I can feel Jim’s energy it when I read it, but thinking about it from a non native stand point, it makes no sense.) So I think picking up the rhythm and feel of a language is a bit broader than the scope of Bunpro, which focuses specifically on individual grammar points. I would suggest Satori Reader if you really want a ‘whole picture’ language/context experience, but Bunpro can’t be beat for really hammering out grammar.

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#7

As someone who only uses the reading mode whenever it’s available, I can feel you. I started here with N5 grammar and am now on the finish line of N4 (grammar and vocab) everything done in reading mode.

From my experience: yes, it’s frustrating, especially in the beginning, but you get used to it and it’s great prep for reading native materials.

How well you can deal with this kind of frustration is something you have to judge for yourself, but in my opinion, if you don’t learn to deal with it here, you’ll have to deal with it somewhere else. There is no way to skip this frustration completely, but stuff like satori reader or beginner bookclubs (haven’t tried the tools you mentioned) can make it a bit less frustrating.

Keep us updated which tools work for you! :slight_smile:

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#8

As Chimmsen as already said, no matter what tool you are going to be using the bad, or insufficient, translations are going to exist. And that is assuming you do not get straight up rewrites. So many anime these days are straight up rewrites.

Anime rewrites have been such a problem for me that I do not trust any translations, no matter where they come from. I just focus on the singular thing that I am suppose to be learning from any particular lesson.

So in BunPro, grammar lessons, for example, I only ever pay attention to the clues in the blank space, and the red text in the translation.

But I am particularly good at piecing context clues together while willing to admitting to my failures. Which prevents me from getting stuck on a “correct” answer. As a result, I find I can make this style work for me.

So yeah, find the things and ways that work for you and keep in mind your own abilities and limits.

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#9

So true :sweat_smile: I watch a lot of anime with friends, and depending on who is there, we use subtitles in english or german. I noticed that sometimes the subtitle translations differ so much, that they become complete opposits of each other, making it totally unclear what’s actually meant. They also oftentimes have different subjects, as japanese omit those and the translators just seem to guess and come up with different interpretations. Who was this sentence about? Ask 2 translators, get 5 answers, I guess?

So if this even happens in professional settings, it seems to me, that this is just how it is and the frustration actually can’t ever be fixed as it’s inherent and even japanese people would discuss about it.

Though that was probably quite tangential to the original question :sweat_smile:

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