Hello,
I’m new to Bunpro, slowly working through the lessons in order.
My question is, how much vocabulary do we need to study to complete all of the grammar lessons? I recently had some reviews for i / na adjectives, and the answers to the questions were individual vocabulary words.
I got them right because the words were simple and I happened to know them, but I’m sure that won’t be the case for long if we are expected to know a lot of vocabulary before doing the grammar lessons.
Thanks.
It’s extremely helpful to have at least the core 2000 or so down. But vocabulary is so vast and variable that you are likely to come across many words you won’t know. I probably know about 10,000 or so words well, but still come across many I don’t know in N3. Just learn as you go. A lot of people here use Wanikani and Anki for vocab.
Since you are taking the lessons in order, the sentences you come across are usually introducing you to new words with +1 in mind. So luckily, you won’t need to do any hardcore formal vocabulary study since you can learn the words at the same time.
Alright, that sounds good. Looks like I should pay close attention to new words introduced in the example phrases.
Thanks.
Do you use anything to help you memorize vocab like Anki, WK, etc.? If not, I would recommend signing up for the vocab beta on Bunpro that you come across through your sentences and help you learn through that.
Outside of that, I don’t think vocab is really going to hinder you too, too much. With minimal vocab, you’ll still be able to get a general gist of the sentences being asked and usually at the start of N5/N4 knowing what the sentence means doesn’t really factor into what grammar is being asked for. Obviously it’s much better to know everything, but I wouldn’t let that stop you from getting exposure early on. Off the top of my head there’s only like one point through N5/N4 that actually requires you to know certain words which I’ve always though is a little odd, but to each their own.
Anyways, welcome to Bunpro!
I am lvl 39 wanikani at the moment, with 4175 Vocab items and I still feel I need a ton more vocab to feel comfortable with reading.
With bunpro and its sentences I realize I can learn a little bit more for sticking those vocab to my mind.
usually it is said there is a 10k vocab list you need, I hope I can achieve that one day.
So far I have finished two anime with jap subtitles, flying witch (I understood around 70%) and Dumbbell* Nan Kilo Moteru? (they speak TOO FAST and I got around 50%). I start Ousama Ranking today. I hope I can understand it 
I believe you have to get out of the comfort zone, I did this with English, watching US tv shows with eng subtitles and learned a lot looking at the situations (never touched a single english grammar book)
I do use WaniKani and KaniWani, but I started all 3 at the same time, so the vocab that I learn through both products is slightly different. I’m not too worried about it though, I was mostly just wondering if vocab was a one-off thing for certain types of grammar points (adjectives for example would obviously require knowing vocab) or if I should pay closer attention to the example sentences.
When that’s the case, it’s one of two things. Either the grammar item Bunpro is looking for is a word (in which case, they are teaching you a special, grammatical sense of the word) or they are looking for you to use a word or phrase in a particular grammatical way. In that second case, what they want you to use will be supplied at the end of the sentence in square brackets.