I wish Bunpro did JP --> EN

[seanblue]

Everything I do in Japanese is about reading. So for me, something like WaniKani which focuses on JP --> EN is ideal. Bunpro does the opposite; you need to read the English translation and provide the Japanese version. This is much harder to me, and while some may benefit from this added challenge of having to “produce” the Japanese, to me it is just frustrating. It’s getting to the point where I’m seeing so many things that sound the same in English that I can’t come up with the answers in Japanese. And I’m only halfway through the N3 content on Bunpro! At this rate, I just can’t imagine myself going through the remaining N3 and N2 grammar points and getting much benefit.

All that said, I don’t have any practical recommendations for how to change Bunpro or even begin to make it JP --> EN. This post is largely me just venting, but if anyone has any practical suggestions I’m all ears.

[thaKingRocka]

I would like to see that option too. I prefer to study in both directions. I think it could work much the same way it does now, but you type the corresponding English phrase. Otherwise, it could be multiple choice from some random grammar points or curated similar points, but the latter would take much more time and effort.

[seanblue]

I think it could work much the same way it does now, but you type the corresponding English phrase

The problem is that unlike vocabulary, grammar is sometimes not translatable into words in English. That’s why I’m not sure how to do it well.

[mrnoone]

@seanblue @thaKingRocka
I think that the best solution would be Japanese -> Japanese like in this post:

And here those frenchies!

@Cenon33650 @pierre-igor-frichete @Kuromaku Hey, I thought about it for some time, and came to conclusion that another mode can be created. Basically, instead of translation, the explanation of grammar point in simple Japanese would be used. I think it would improve understanding, since you would not really know English approximation, but function of the word instead. It could be easily used by all people regardless of their language of origin. To help those people, GUI could be translated. W…

and example here:

And here those frenchies!

@Noursaidana @Kuromaku @zerohbeat Something like this: 父は思い出を語っている：「小学校の時の引っ越し＿＿＿＿、母さんに出会えた。」 Hint: 物事を始める原因 (answer: がきっかけで・をきっかけに) This is just an idea for the time being

[seanblue]

That’s still language production, not language recognition.

[Kuromaku]

@mrnoone @seanblue

I completely agree with the OP.

While I still enjoy BP a lot and it has been the best resource for grammar so far - still, I’m in exactly the same situation. I don’t care much about production. In fact, you should NOT produce a language untill you actually acquire it to the level where you can be reasonably confident that you are not making mistakes (this is not my opinion, search for AJATT or MIA).

So, having the option to purely focus on comprehension would be nice. But I fully realize that it is unlikely to happen, as it would completely change the idea of what BP tries to build.

So, I guess I will just continue to consume native material and supplement my studies with BP for purely comprehension reasons, even if BP itself teaches you production.

[s1212z]

Same situation, my comprehension was still lacking despite all the Bunpro practice. I ended up just making a comprehension deck for anything N3 and above in Kitsun and it helped greatly. I kept it non-input so I can just fly through it and have it not take a lot of time. The quick study feature was most helpful once I filtered my worst areas. I was doing them manually until I found the copy sentence script. In hindsight, I could have gone to the troubled grammar section in cram to just select from that list. I practice conversation often and it’s probably my primary motivation so Bunpro’s production approach has helped in that respect (along with writing).

[seanblue]

I ended up just making a comprehension deck for anything N3 and above in Kitsun

How did you structure the deck? As in, what details did you put in the cards?

[s1212z]

There are more optimal layouts I could have customized but the default non-input worked for my needs. I mostly cared that I could insert a long sentence and still read it. I got lazy on most and didn’t necessarily fill in every category.

Just so the BP team knows, I haven’t published this deck within Kitsun or anything.

Back of card only

[Seraseth]

Same here, atm my sole aim is for reading japanese(and listening too to a degree), so would be nice to have some sort of recognition based grammar aside from recall.

[mrnoone]

@Seraseth @s1212z @seanblue @Kuromaku @thaKingRocka

What about something like this:
材料が少なすぎるから、ケーキの作り＿＿＿＿。
ようがない。
作りきれない
Choose the correct one?

[Kuromaku]

How about an opposite idea?

The user is presented with a sentence in japanese with a particular grammar point highlighted and the user has to enter or select what specific meaning this particular grammar point has in this specific context.

[mrnoone]

Ohh that is cool too

By the way, ようがない is the correct answer.
きれない cannot be used in this case, because it means “too many to finish” and 少なすぎる means “too few”, so there would be inconsistency.

[Seraseth]

That works, I’ve seen the select the correct grammar fill in the blank multiple choice on another site

@Kuromaku
That works too, selecting the meaning could be a different type of question

[s1212z]

I like either idea as well, this would be great !

[Asher]

I said this ages ago and I got flamed for it. After N3 I didnt feel like I was learning Japanese anymore, just felt like I was playing a guessing game of 'which grammar point was this sentence from. Even worse I felt like I was learning to translate, not read.

My suggestion is copy all the grammar points into a document like I did and just only look at the Japanese and check that you remember the meaning every few days. It’s 100x more time efficient as you don’t need to look at the english unless you need it. Apart from that just read real things. My suggestion for bunpro is after N3, english should realistically be gone. In it’s place should be a similar but different grammar point also in Japanese as a hint, or a simple description in Japanese. Even just a multiple choice with all the possibilities that have red text explaining why a possible choice is wrong when clicked. It would be a lot of work but it would work best.

[seanblue]

I’m struggling with all the similar grammar points even just halfway through the N3 grammar on Bunpro. I’d be open to trying a new approach. Hopefully Bunpro can implement one of these other approaches within a few months.