Have you done your BunPro Review today?

[Kai]

Whenever it appears in BunPro sentences it has [passive] written in the gap so I just go “rareru” without thinking about why the passive form was used it the sentence rather than standard form.

Passive verbs (finally) started making perfect sense to me once I examined them using tiny relative clauses. For example:

• 選ばれた人

This is 選ぶ (えらぶ, to select) in passive form, and means “the person chosen/selected.” The 人 in this example did not 選ぶ anything, because… the verb passively happened to them. Note that 選んだ人 by comparison, without the passive form, is actually ambiguous and, depending on context, may refer to either the chooser or the person chosen.

I never used Tae Kim’s stuff very much, but it looks like he’s got a pretty good piece about the Japanese passive here:

The Japanese word for “passive”,「受身」(うけみ), using the characters for “receive” and “body” expresses what the passive is in Japanese; people are doing things to you and you have no choice but to take it like a bitch. The passive indicates that the action was not done by the subject but done unto the subject. In other words, the subject had no control or input on the action.

I edited it a bit to make more sense out-of-context and added my own emphasis, but if you want to read the original, you can find it here: Don’t Suffer Passively

[MissDagger]

@MissDagger How are the classroom lessons going over there? Reinforcing or completely different to the self-study you were doing before?

They are really helping me reinforce BP N5 and N5 related vocab and kanji from WK. Plus it is teaching me how to speak and listen. I’m also getting to a point where I can actually have a whole conversation even if it is about extremely limited things. But I can now almost entirely have some conversations with my teachers without using English (however only sometimes when I’m asking for help to understand something).

For example, today was school field day so we went to Osaka. Our normal teacher on Fridays escorted us and I talked to her a couple of times entirely in Japanese. Not always complete sentences and such (but then speaking is more lenient for that), but fairly well. Plus I had a maybe 20 minutes discussion with another teacher from my school that I don’t have classes with.

So it is reinforcing what I have learned and also teaching me to use it in speaking, listening, and to some extension writing (I’d done some of that myself). Plus we are practicing particles several times a week and it is really helping me get solid on those.

Sorry if it was a bit long and circular. My brain is a bit fried after a day in the sun with ~27C degrees.

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I’ve been more consistent with WK lessons, doing 5 lessons per day most days this week. Also I’m finally caught up with school vocabulary added to Torii, so this weekend I’ll actually get a bit ahead, so I’ll actually know the words roughly by the time they show up in class!

[Jul3]

@Kai Thanks! That’s a good example sentence. I’m going to read a lot more example sentences on a page linked by BP on passive. Also, thanks for the TaeKim link, I read his normal post on passive and it had no info, I had no idea he had a blog going into things in more detail as well, shame the article wasn’t linked directly from his normal passive page.

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@MissDagger That’s great to hear about the speaking. 20minutes sounds like a long conversation to be able to hold!

[MissDagger]

Well, if I was better at Japanese it would have been much shorter, haha. There were a lot of me saying I don’t understand and him repeating what he said but easier. And then it was me thinking and trying to figure out a way to say the stuff I wanted to say with my limited Japanese.

[Jul3]

Oh dear, haha, but at least you could have a conversation, that’s a good step!

[MissDagger]

Aye! I’m slowly, slowly, getting better at having conversations and expression what I want to express. That trip really showed that I could say things and ask things I wanted most of the time.

[lopicake]

Did my reviews…And got a new shiny badge~~

It was rough with the different time zones and 10+hr flights but I made sure to get in 1 or 2 reviews whenever I could between putting it on Vacation Mode

Finished up all the new N4 and N3 grammar points! Looking forward to the rest!
I dipped my toes in N1 with a few grammar points but ultimately decided against doing all of them. I’d rather work on them after I take the N2, as well as when they are all complete. Going through Kanzen Master for N2 made me realize I would rather work through it alongside the BP lessons so that will be my plan for N1.

[MissDagger]

Today will probably be my first WK level up in two months. I leveled up on BP only a couple of days ago (31).

I’ve been adding lessons on WK steady this past week, found some new motivation in actually getting further there. I also keep adding class vocabulary to Torii.

I haven’t figured out a plan that works for me for BP yet. Also because I already spend a lot of time every day on Japanese and I’m having trouble fitting in other things I really want and need to do.

[jamie]

WK and BP level up. Got a new badge.

• Still confusing てき with かする, I don’t know the equivalent in my own language, the English explanation is quite hard to consume. I have to review the sentences again.
• iKnow still behind 8 levels from WK, a lot of vocabs are still locked.
• Can’t do anything beside WK, BP and iKnow at the moment. My hands are full with work. I’ll take it slow for the time being.

[skullclutter]

Hi All, long time no post.

I took a hiatus from Bunpro as I’d finished Genki and moved on to Tobira and there were just too many missing grammar points to make it worth continuing here. Instead, I created Bunpro-style cloze-delete anki cards for the example sentences. I finished Chapter 1 before I realized that they’re working on adding in the missing grammar!

I spent last week catching up on my backlog (and adding in the items from Genki) and started adding Tobira grammar points today.

I think I’m going to keep going this way, with both Anki and Bunpro. The example sentences in Anki help drill the usage rules quickly, and Bunpro tests if I know when to apply them, and how to combine grammar points.

Currently only at study streak 3, but I’ve also only missed 3 days in the last two weeks.

[Jul3]

It’s been about a week or so since I posted my progress in this thread. I’ve been busy so only had time to do one review session per day on all my SRS. This has generally been a big one (or sometimes only a few grammar points on BP), and I found it a real slog and hard to reca or understand any of the new stuff. Today and yesterday have finally been back to normal for me SRS wise and it’s much better to be able to do reviews a few sessions a day, with those sessions smaller. I’ve finally been able to recall some kanji I added a week ago on WK and understand the differences between some of the similar grammar points on BP. So I think smaller but more regular review sessions on SRS suits me better. I even found time last night to do some Japanese reading for the first time in weeks last night and felt good when I recognised things were in the passive or potential form etc. Maybe I’m not always picking it up, but it felt good to notice.

[MissDagger]

Turned out the level up didn’t happen until the day after I said that. Yesterday I only did stuff in the morning. And I’m unfortunately running out of upcoming reviews on BP, considering I haven’t added a new grammar point for 24 days, that isn’t too surprising. So now would be a good time to figure out how to add in regular new grammar points here on BP.

[MissDagger]

Been adding a few points here on BP this weekend and on Monday. I suddenly have actual reviews to do and I’ve managed to create a few ghosts in the last few days. Ah well. Also been adding lessons on WK pretty consistently.

In fact, my out-of-class studying (beyond) homework is now actually taking up a fair chunk of my day and I’m finding it hard to find time to build a side-business I want running well when I finish my year in Japan. Something have to give somewhere. It is a bit annoying because I finally felt like I was doing as much Japanese studies as I want, but it also takes up probably 2-3 hours outside class time, and only 30-60 mins of that is homework.

[jamie]

Been busy with activity outside learning Japanese lately, I’m fallen behind for iKnow and didn’t have time to read books. Still doing WK and BP as usual. WK leveled up, 15 more levels to pass N3. It progressed according to schedule. BP might be first to finish N3 by then. iKnow, well might be very late to finish. The vocabulary is progressively harder and harder. WK added 15 lessons and BP added 3 grammar points. Need to finish those 200+ reviews on iKnow before adding more.

[skullclutter]

Missed 3 days again this week. I’ve got 3 more grammar points left to go in Tobira Chapter 1

[Jul3]

About a week since I last posted, and I was away visiting family over our 4-day weekend, so reviews got behind again. I tried to do one session a day, again BP taking the biggest hit, just trying to keep the streak going. But now I’ve caught up again, and even added a few grammar points tonight, as they seemed fairly straightforward. And been gradually catching up lessons on WK too. I might even try and do some reading tonight!

[John_Doe]

Nope, I’ve missed about a month. My laptop broke for 2 weeks, and when I finally did resolve that issue, I was too demotivated to continue. I’m really nervous thinking about how much I must have forgotten. The other day I saw それなら and didn’t realize it was a bunpro grammar point. I’ll give an update when I’m on top of things.

[Jul3]

Recently feeling back in the swing of things. Adding new grammar points on BP, about to level up finally on WK (my slowest level yet probably), finished all the N4 grammar on Torii (I am trying now not to add random words, but I keep a list of words I encounter elsewhere and add them instead). Being doing some other Japanese stuff also, a little reading, both of grammar books and graded readers/manga and did a lil Pimsleur, watching Misa’s videos etc. I should keep the momentum going and then maybe search for an online tutor to get that speaking practice in again.

[MissDagger]

Leveled up on BP. 32 now! If only I was that level on WK, haha. I’m currently 11 on WK, but again reminded myself that even 4 lessons a day is better than none and it takes me almost no time to do. Depending on the rest of my day, I might add more on WK, but I might not.

Also I’ve been adding grammar points on BP, because I realized my class will seriously begin with N4 grammar stuff late this month or starting with the summer term a week into July. So I want to try to get through N4 grammar on BP before then, or be close to done. Plus my current textbook puts some things in N5 that BP puts in N4. And because I want to do BP in order, I’m not jumping ahead to those parts. (I’m on N4 lesson 2 and there are 3 points in lesson 8 that should come up in class in a couple of weeks.)

Also keep adding class vocabulary on Torii. It really helps with classes, already knowing the vocabulary before it shows up, although I can’t quite remember all of them, I know most of them.

Outside that I’ve been reading graded readers and after I’ve read a few more of those I might just dive into my first native Japanese material. So excited. Will definitely be doing it in July when a new book starts on the Absolute Beginners book club on WK.

[mrnoone]

You should try reading tsurezure children