How to use vocabulary decks?

ksandlin · February 16, 2024, 10:13pm

Hello. I have a few questions about the vocab decks and how to use them. I am already 75% through Genki I so already know most of the vocab in the chapters I have already covered. If I want to start using Bunpro to review my vocab and study new vocab, how do I do this? I have a few main questions.

I see the vocab deck for Genki I, but it doesn’t appear to be sectioned by chapter or have a way to mass add words to the mastered category. I see I can click an individual word and add it to mastered, but I need to add everything in the first 75% of Genki I (with these words still coming up in my reviews in the future). Is there a way to quickly go through and select ALL the vocab I already know and assign it to a group based on my familiarity with the word (beginner, adept, seasoned, etc)?
I am also unsure how the vocab is mixed into my grammar reviews. Are they kept separate or if I start learning the vocab from the Genki deck, will those words pop up in my reviews mixed in with grammar? Ideally they are separate and there is a way I can choose if I want to review grammar or vocab from my dashboard and it will only show one or the other. I see the toggle to have a “main deck” and a “secondary deck” in the deck settings, but this didn’t seem to change anything on my dashboard so not sure I am understanding how that works/what that means.

Basically, hoping there is a way I can mass add/assign the vocab from the Genki I vocab deck to knowledge categories (beginner, adept, seasoned, etc) and then have the vocab sectioned off on my dashboard so I can choose to review either vocab or grammar.

Thanks everyone!

wct · February 16, 2024, 10:43pm

Opt-in to the Beta test program, if you have not already done so. Got to your account settings and select to opt in.
Go to Dashboard, and from there go to Decks (which should now be available). Link: Decks | Bunpro
Find the Genki deck which corresponds to the edition of Genki you have. E.g. Genki I 3rd Edition (the one that is labelled ‘Complete’ on the picture).
If you just want to start adding items in the default order (which, yes, does follow the book order, although there are no explicit separations into chapters), then just click the Learn button directly on the deck. You’ll begin a new Learn session.
For anything more than that very simplistic interface, click on the deck itself (not on any of its buttons though), and go to the deck’s page itself. E.g. Here’s a link to the previously mentioned edition: Genki I 3rd Edition | Bunpro
On the deck’s page, you can adjust the Deck Settings. E.g. you can make the deck your Main Deck (or Secondary Deck if you want); change the Batch Size for Learn sessions; and adjust various other settings.
Once you have a deck as your Primary or Secondary, you can select the Learn button from the Dashboard to do new Learn sessions. I.e. you don’t have to hunt for the deck each time.

After that, just use the Learn button to add lessons in order of the book. After a Learn session, the new items are added to your Review queue as normal. Take your time with them, don’t add them all at once. Eventually you will work your way through every Lesson in the book, and then you can decide what other deck(s) you want to continue with next.

By default all reviews are lumped into a single review queue. In your account settings you can turn on ‘splitting’ of Vocab and Grammar reviews if you want. If so, then you will have the option to do review sessions with just Vocab, just Grammar, or both mixed as usual.

I’m not sure the best way to do such mass-adding. But, for example, if you just do Learn sessions, proceed through the lessons as usual, but when it comes to the Quiz time, you can manually adjust the SRS levels of each item you have added.

There might be a silver lining to taking your time to add these ‘manually’, one by one, rather than all at once or in large batches. It will spread them out a bit more, over time, so that you don’t end up with a big lump of reviews always popping up at the same time.

If you find there are not enough review items per day, then add another Learn session. Once the number of reviews per day increases too high, slow down on new learn sessions. Slowing down? Add another Learn session.

Or do a fixed number of Lessons per day. That’s also a good strategy.

ksandlin · February 16, 2024, 11:10pm

Thanks for the detailed reply. I already opted into the beta and saw most of what you described. Was hoping to avoid going through the “Learn” sessions and quizzes for over 500+ vocabulary words that I’ve already mastered with the use of Anki and other review materials. I will check out splitting the grammar and vocab in the settings and see if this works how I want on the dashboard. Thanks again!

Also curious if there is a way to see the JLPT progress bar chart on the dashboard, but for vocab. You can toggle between vocab and grammar in the progress section showing the number of beginner, adept, seasoned, etc, but don’t see a way to toggle between vocab and grammar for the JLPT progress bar chart.

It would be nice if there were almost two identical dashboards - one for vocab and one for grammar. With a big toggle button at the top to go between the two.

_nelce · March 30, 2025, 3:11pm

I’m likewise trying to figure out these vocab decks. I’ve added a few words for review, but is there a way to actually review/study them instead of being quizzed on them right away? For example, is there a section that lists the vocab added for review (instead of seeing an entire list of words under the vocab tab)? Thanks!

drunkgome · March 31, 2025, 1:51am

You might need to elaborate a bit more as to what it is you want to know or do. I’ll try to answer based on what I think you might be looking for. Let me know if it is what you meant.

When you add a vocab deck, you’ll have the option to learn words. Each word will be given its own page which details the common meanings and pronunciation. Most words also have example sentences when you scroll down further. After you are done with a word, you hit next and do the next word until you reach your set batch size. Once that is done, you will be quickly quizzed on the words you have just learned. After getting the words correct, they will be moved into your review queue and the SRS process will begin. After 4 hours you will receive the first round of reviews for those words. Upon getting the reviews correct the time between reviews will increase.

I’m assuming your question has to do with how you can practice these words without/before doing the SRS reviews? Again let me know if this isn’t the case. A good way to do this is to use the cram function which will allow you to quiz yourself on selected items (both grammar and vocab) as many times as you’d like without ever impacting the SRS algorithm. After clicking the link you can use items under the tab named special such as recently learned to quickly add what you have recently learned.

If instead you just want quick access to the words you have recently learned without having to go through the entire vocab list or actually cram them, you can check the dashboard. If you scroll down you will be able to see a section labeled progress this allows you to see the number of items you have in each SRS level for both vocab and grammar. Toggle the selection to Vocabulary and then click on the block labeled beginner. This should show you all of the beginner items split into categories like beginner 1,2,3 etc. Most of the items under beginner 1 should be what you have recently learned.

Hopefully one of these is what you were looking for, if not let me know.

_nelce · March 31, 2025, 2:11am

Thanks so much for your help! The second option is exactly what I was looking for. By going to the progress, I can see all the vocab words I’ve added and can review that way.

Although I’m curious about the cram function you brought up. I went to the Special section and under beginner, after clicking on the drop down, I only see grammar and not any vocab. Where might I find the vocab?

drunkgome · March 31, 2025, 2:31am

Unfortunately my subscription ended yesterday and the system seems to have lost my card info. I resubscribed using paypal since it was easier, but it will take a while before it activates so I can’t check the actual cram interface right now.

From what I remember though, there is an option for recently learned which should have both the vocab and grammar ( I think). If it does have both then you can open the drop down box and manually select all of the vocab you are interested in cramming if there aren’t too many of them. I think it is set up to list all grammar options and then all vocab options or vice versa so you might need to scroll past all of the grammar to get to the vocab. If that drop down box does not contain vocab then you can try using the SRS beginner option which definitely contains both.

The only issue is that adding that one adds both grammar and vocab and also adds the beginner 2,3,4 items. There is no official way to filter either grammar or vocab as of yet unfortunately, but I did find a bit of a workaround which I discussed in this thread which allows you to somewhat filter for the type of item you want (vocab or grammar) Maybe you can give this a try. I’ll come back and edit the comment once I can access and actually see the cram page to give a more accurate answer.