Likewise with @Brand_S, I initially turn off all English when reading example sentences while learning new grammar. This lets me focus on how mind processes the grammar without the English sentence kind of leading my initial guess. However, I turn off English for grammar reviews as well to see if I can figure it out, and then use hints later when i canāt
I start with no english, try to read and understand the full sentence, then try to understand which grammar point might be relevant. But as there can be many options, I just guess sometimes. If I get it wrong, I back up and check the hint and try again assuming there were multiple valid options. This is mostly how I do it.
Other times when I just am too tired or just āmehā. I just show the hint and get on with it. At this point, if i get it wrong for any reason - I dont correct it and accept my fate.
I have to be honest, I use English all the time and then check the Japanese after remembering the grammar point to make sure I have the conjugation correct.
I mostly just want to remember the corresponding grammar in English at this point. When I wind up finishing everything on the site I intend to switch it off and just do it purely in Japanese.
Started with orange english nuance always shown on day 1 and have kept it the same after 450 days, donāt think Iāll ever change it. I donāt have the time (nor really want to tbh) to sit without nuance/hint of what itās asking at this point in my studies because sometimes thatās a downright impossible task. Not exactly 1 to 1, but itās almost the same as taking away a word or two from an english sentence and then trying to parse together what was supposed to go in there after. Sometimes the nuance will slightly give away what the overall sentence (or at least one chunk of it) is implying but thatās a trade-off I am 10000000000000% fine with.
To each their own, but I think nuance on seems to be a really common thing around here. Read/attempt to understand the sentence, enter the answer, then show english afterwards if you need it.
Generally only show the hint, however some of the higher level grammar points are a pain in the ass and I need more English information or just need the answer.
I use this setting. Itās too hard, or impossible, to guess the answer without any hint, and sometimes the translation throws me off because different sentences use different translations. That said, Iāll hit the space bar once if I still need help.
yeah i tried to do some cram sessions just now without any english and LOL that was genuinely painful, hats off to any of you who actually do their studies like that though.
I have it on the hint setting
Iām very dumb and have nothing to prove! >:)
I have nuance shown. I used to go all in on English, but then realised I was reading that more than I was the actual Japanese and effectively shooting myself in the foot. That being said, if Iām really mega stumped Iāll bite the bullet (the one I shot myself in the foot with!) and take a peek at the sentence, but half the time I prefer to just let myself bugger it up. In the name of learning.
I have hidden Japanese and English on example sentences. While studying new grammar, at first I click Play and listen audio. Only if I donāt understand it by ear, I click Show Japanese. And in case I still donāt get it I click Show English.
When there wasnāt this feature, I just read Japanese and right then English and thought like āoh, I get itā while actually not quite.
I had turned on the āAlways Show Nuanceā option for reviews for quite a long time, a year or two I guess, because I had a really hard time dealing with just an English sentence on the early stage for a year or something. But then I realized it actually hinders me because I can enter a correct answer even without reading a Japanese sentence, just looking on English and orange nuance thing. Now I have selected the āHintā option for half a year I guess. If I donāt have any clue, I just hit Space to see English and sometimes an orange nuance if thereās any.
I keep the hint on to try to force me to read the sentence and understand the sentence and why the grammar is used. Unfortunately what actually ends up happening is when i move to the next question i just press space so the whole sentence shows up and i dont bother trying to translate
Since I started using Bunpro (about a year ago) Iāve used it with the English hint on by default. I would also have the English sentence translation on by default, but changed to to be hidden somewhere in the first few months. Looking at some of the responses here, I noticed that a lot of people review it with the āalways show nuanceā on instead of hint, so I gave it a shot and I like it so far. It helps when there is less English showing by default.
Ok I was curious so I tried nuance for a couple reviews and I donāt get it. It just doesnāt show anything at all? I thought the nuance was the yellow bit that sometimes shows up when you use the wrong form to kind of put you on track. Did I do something wrong or are you guys really just solving these lessons completely blind??? If so hats off but that really isnāt for me. I like my blue hints
Turns out I thought it was called nuance, but it was just hint. I think I got the names mixed up, especially after I did the nuance setting once and, like you, didnāt understand the difference. I think it shows nothing unless thereās orange nuance and then itāll only show that?
Dunno, but Iām a blut hint boi 4 life.
A lot of them really are impossible without the hint. Gonna see how long I can go without hints on by default, but I still have to give in a lot of the time.
The nuance doesnāt show up on everyone, but a lot are impossible without the hint regardless. Anyone who is claiming to solve them blindly the first time is homies with Pinocchio.
When reviewing grammar points, I use the Always Show Nuance
setting. This only shows the orange text. The (vast) majority of the time, I hit the spacebar once to get the English hint.
One of the potential problems in not trying to answer with the hint and nuance is that you might find yourself memorizing the sentence instead of learning how to express the given English in Japanese. I had previously noticed this problem creeping up for me when doing cloze cards in Anki. Iād find myself remembering the word(s) based entirely on the visual cue of the sentence (i.e. the image of the sentence, as opposed to the meaning of the words). When I encountered the same words in real world Japanese I couldnāt remember the meaning because the visual cues were gone. (Obviously, this problem exists to some extent with any visual-based learning system; all we can do is try to mitigate it.)
When I do grammar point review now, I actually donāt read the Japanese sentence unless I need a contextual hint as to what the right Japanese equivalent is for the given English expression Bunpro prompts for.
Incidentally, this does bring up one of the core weaknesses Iāve identified with Bunpro: itās strongly oriented toward English ā Japanese thinking. I wish there was some kind of system for reviewing things in a Japanese-first orientation. Perhaps a system where youāre presented the grammar point and you have to choose the correct English meaning?
As it stands right now, I have to supplement study on Bunpro with Anki cards by drilling the Japanese and then testing myself to remember the English.
I think this would be something that might not be too hard to implement, and can get chucked into Cram or wherever. Initially I thought maybe writing in the English equivalent would be good, but I like the idea of a series of 3-4 optional answers to choose from. Or, could just do it similar to how flashcards are now where it shows the Japanese and then after hitting some key, the answer pops up afterwards. Who knows but Iāve thought about this too before and like where your mind is going.
Initially I thought maybe writing in the English equivalent would be goodā¦
Yeah, I had the same thought. The main problem that occurred to me is there can be many different ways of expressing any given Japanese in English (and vice versa). Itās almost a game of whack-a-mole to try and capture all the ways something could be translated. It would likely be a heavy burden for the editors. If you have any experience with Duo, youāll know how difficult (and at times, frustrating) this approach can be.
But multiple choice has its own problems too, not the least of which is that it gives you too much information. Itās better for recall if youāre able to remember unaided. But your suggestion of having to first press a button to see the choices would help with that. You could even give the user the option to explicitly fail the question if the answer they had in mind isnāt one of the choices presented (thus indicating it was not remembered correctly).
Okay, here is my review of each setting based on my experience and your feedback:
Hide: Too little information, in many cases there is no way to arrive at the answer without revealing more
Hint: Gives enough to get the answer without translating the rest of the sentence, but one could answer correctly without reading the rest of the sentence outside of the preceding and following words. This is an inherent issue with the platform that I will address further on
Show: Very similar to āHintā, but includes the translation for the rest of the sentence. For those who read every sentence fully, this setting would give you less reading practice than āHintā
More: The same setting as āShowā, but with the nuance (explained in the next section below) included. This is the easiest and most training wheels-y setting, and gives all of the possible quiz information. Similar to āHintā in that you can answer correctly without fully reading the sentence, and similar to āShowā in that you donāt need to read the rest of the sentence in Japanese. The nuance helps determine which grammar point is the right one among similar possible answers
Always Show Nuance: This is the most different and interesting setting by far. For grammar points with nuances, it shows generally what the grammar point is trying to get at, as well as subtleties that would differentiate it from like grammar points. I like this setting a lot. For one, itās not poorly translating Japanese to English like the hint is. In many cases, it also doesnāt give the answer away without requiring you to read any Japanese. Finally, it helps guide you towards specific grammar points rather than entering a different correct guess that gets soft rejected. I think that the platform should move more towards this as the default, but many grammar points donāt even have a nuance entry, and thus are the equivalent of āHideā with this setting, which as I said, makes most questions impossible to answer without revealing more info. Iād love to see Bunpro add nuances to everything to make this setting more legit, and if this is the way to go, maybe refine it more to maximize not giving away too much while at the same time better helping you arrive at the answer. I feel like the more vague words dancing around the right answer the better. If I just see āifā in a hint, Iām going to type āććā in a 1:1 math like translation without reading anything else. If I get very general hints about what the answer is trying to convey (meaning, politeness, spoken/written, emphasis, ect.), Iāll read the rest of the sentence and find the right key to make it work as intended, and will have a better understanding of the grammar pointās nuance going forward, instead of associating it with an English āequivalentā
Do other people agree that the nuance is the way to the promised land?