Hi, i’m finding the help section of bunpro quite lacking. Its not clear on exactly how to use bunpro properly.
Here’s my qns:
If i get a answer wrong, what am i supposed to do? look at the answer, and then press next?
Or do i clear the answer and try typing the right answer again?
If i do the later, does it screw the SRS?
If you clear the answer (Backspace), you are screwing with the SRS. Only do that when you make a typo or if you’re sure that your answer was actually correct. When you get an answer wrong, you should generally look at the answer and then continue (Enter). You want to be marked wrong when you don’t know the answer so that you can study that grammar point more.
Wow - I know this was a long time ago, but I couldn’t find any other threads about it, so thanks a lot for clarifying this, @seanblue. I’ve been doing this wrong for a while now. I assumed Bunpro wanted me to type the right answer myself after revealing so I commit it better to memory, and I was very confused when the whole thing ended with “100% correct” afterwards.
Why is it so easy to screw with the SRS by accident? I feel like you shouldn’t even be able to get your answer rated as correct after looking at the answer, at least not without pressing a red button labeled “ignore my answer and correct it”.
This is an interesting point actually. When 文プロ was brand new, there were tons of alternative answers that were perfectly valid, but weren’t being checked for yet (so they’d be erroneously marked wrong). It made a lot of sense to give the user the discretion to account for those (and for answering using a different grammar point altogether).
Now though, maybe the override ability should be made into a legacy option (that’s disabled by default for new users)? Especially since so many alternative answers are being caught now, and a wrong answer leads to more reviews, which ultimately leads to better retention.
On a related note, I think the reviews that flash an orange warning (typically reminding you of a neglected particle) should be marked wrong instead of allowing the user to add the particle and get the answer right, because A) this is exactly what ghost reviews were originally intended to handle (i.e. small nuances in specific review sentences) and B) if we’re speaking or typing Japanese ourselves, we won’t always have someone over our shoulder to say “you need a な here,” etc.
(Tagging @Jake & @Pushindawood for visibility)
Sigh - it’s really going to spike my review/ghost counts, but @Kai is right. The orange flash warning really is a ‘gimme’, and I know I should mark it wrong, but I happily skate through because Bunpro doesn’t stop me.
Whenever I’m debating whether to undo a mistake or leave an answer wrong, I just ask myself, “am I here to get a high score on Bunpro, or am I here to get good at Japanese?”
It’s a lot easier to mark things wrong if your answer is “to get good at Japanese” 
(FWIW, my overall accuracy is only around 70%, but it gives me lots of practice!)
Sometimes I find it difficult to understand the significance of the orange notes. If I’m missing a particle I just assume I’m wrong, but because it’s not marked wrong I wonder if it’s saying that the particle is supposed to be there but it’s often left out in colloquial speech or something like that? I don’t think I’d ever want those marked correct though.
But sometimes an orange note says I wrote something that’s correct but just not what the card was looking for. Does that mean I’m missing some nuance? If not, marking those wrong would be counterproductive.
(Tbh, those are already annoying as it is. This kind of thing is basically the entire reason why SRS isn’t considered good for grammar, you end up memorizing the questions rather than the point they’re trying to make.)
I’ve been dropping reports on reviews with that type of error message to get more specific feedback, e.g. would this grammar point genuinely work here? Would it change the nuance? Etc. Hopefully there’ll be fewer vague warnings/hints like that as you progress because of that
Agreed, the nuances of things can be difficult to comprehend sometimes, but so far I’ve just been working through with it. If you don’t learn the right nuances you may say something grammatically incorrect or just straight up wrong in practical on your own speech. Better to be always proper ^^
I’m in a very basic level of grammar yet, but for example, I’ve had that when reviewing へ and に, and as ar as I’ve looked into, they are basically 99.9% interchangeable when it comes to location. And I assume the only reason they force you to use one or the other, is simply cause the idea of having both the “へ” and “に” in review, is to well… use both.
But yeah, can’t truly say if your example is like that… I would imagine so, but still, it’s kinda hard to cover all those nuances and have a software that will check for minor stuff, I almost think it’s something to accept until you can just get into native material and pick up the nuances and details from that
Hmm, I disagree. The idea is knowing what the grammar points do and mean in a sentence… sure you can memorize them, but how does that mean you don’t know why that grammar point is there?
Obviously bunpro isn’t some magic site that would let you go out writing perfect japanese, just like how wanikani isn’t either, just knowing some jukugo doesn’t mean you will know how to use them properly.
I think SRS for grammar works well, just gotta remember it’s not all one would need to do
Hmm, I disagree. The idea is knowing what the grammar points do and mean in a sentence
My point is that I have no way to know that when all it does is ask me for a different word. It’s just teaching me to memorize the question.
I’ve had that when reviewing へ and に, and as ar as I’ve looked into, they are basically 99.9% interchangeable when it comes to location.
They are mostly interchangeable when it comes to direction of movement toward a location, but not with locations in other contexts.
I think there are examples with へようこそ where only へ works because it’s a set expression. Apart from those, I don’t know if へ is really better in the sentences the site wants me to use it in.
I’ve read that it sounds more formal in many cases. But many of the examples are casual.
I’ve also read that the main difference in nuance is direction vs. specific destination. E.g. I can take a bus that goes Berlinへ to get to the fast food shop two stops down the road because it doesn’t only go specifically Berlinに.
I’ve also read that へ cannot be used for your current location in many cases. E.g. talking about going to a place again in the future while you’re currently there.
And I’ve read that へ cannot be replaced with に when followed by の because に can’t be used with の in that order. For example, you can’t replace へ with に in 日本への旅行 (a trip to Japan).
These are all things we could be learning here but instead I memorized that for some unknown reason, when the site asks me to express movement to a given destination, it often wants me to say that in terms of movement toward that location when the sentence is very short and seems to obvious otherwise.
So you want each card to have a bible of small details that are vastly meaningless to people other than very advanced students? Sounds very efficient… /s
Sounds more like a problem with your passiveness than with the site
I only explained what I meant by learning the question rather than the grammar. If you don’t actually want to learn grammar, that’s fine too, but I do.