That was well said, and I agree with your points. It’s just that some vocab seems very far removed and useless until my skills improve. I like to pretend I’m having a conversation during my reviews, but some of these words were just like wow! But I get it. However, textbooks seem to put together sentences specific to each level, including new vocabulary periodically and regularly. BP has been very good to me thus far, and I plan to continue to use it well into the future. I was getting a bit frustrated because I just don’t find it too effective in getting me to speak it effectively, and it has kind of the opposite effect when because I don’t understand a word(s), it makes me nervous and scared!
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Ye, and also this is about (20 repetition rule) where is you see word 20 time in context (mb it was about different context) you remember it!
I hope I’ll learn all the words just by doing grammar here))
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I personally sort of like this about Bunpro. Besides Bunpro, I also do WaniKani and the Genki books (I am close to the end of N5), and I like the fact Bunpro is presenting me with phrases that seem closer to real spoken Japanese, as someone else mentioned here. Although, actually, I would probably hate it if I didn’t use Yomitan to quickly bring up the meaning of every unknown word lol.
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Yeah! And as I said, it works great for me personally 
Though, I agree with some others that looking every single unknown word can get overwhelming, so if I’m tired I just look up the words quickly, without “actively” trying to remember them. But even that at least helps to recognize the words later.
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I think this is a pretty big problem with Bunpro that stands in the way of learning grammar.
But, I think the fix is to just make creating vocab decks easier. I should be able to get a translation by clicking on a word, and then be able to instantly add that word to reviews with another click.
This way you get all the benefits of introducing new words naturally, but without killing the pace of learning. Currently you have to:
- Identify the word you don’t understand
- Open a new Bunpro tab
- Search the word in Bunpro
- Check meaning and add to vocab to reviews
And that’s assuming the word is even in Bunpro vocab…
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And that’s assuming the word is even in Bunpro vocab…
I run into this issue way too many times for it to not be a feature of this site, despite how helpful it has been in getting better at grammar.
My current go-to is to “XXX bunpro” into Google and about half the time I find what I need.
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Or add to Anki with yomitan!
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I mainly do Bunpro on an iPad. I can’t do this. It needs to be integrated into the core system instead of relying on third party apps.
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I do think that bunpro example sentences are overly complicated.
If the intention was to practice reading/sentence comprehension it would be fine. But when the focus is on the grammar point or vocab I don’t see the reason to have such convoluted and long sentences.
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Totally agree, I am doing N5 grammar and the grammar review sentences are often quite long containing overly complicated words. Even worse, is that these sentences do not come close to normal daily conversation.
Please improve this Bunpro. It makes it less fun, and consumes energy that could be better spent on learning the grammar and words that are useful and within the current level.
How about just serving N4 + N5 words to somebody doing N5 grammar? And N4+ N3 words to somebody doing N4 grammar?
Cheers!
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I agree with the OP, there’s a limit to obscurity. An occasional unknown word is okay. But long complex sentences with unknown and obscurewords, possibly also multiple grammar points… they just make me gloss over what is being said, really. I see no learning benefit.
I get that some people believe that this is closer to real conversation instead of providing the fake security of textbook examples, but…
- Bunpro kinda makes a big deal about N5 to N1 levels in its whole structure, but it’s grammar examples couldn’t care less about Nx level vocab, lessening its value as a Nx level prep tool.
- If you want to study conversation, there are so many other options. I’m here for the grammar.
- Outright obscure words like “ghostship” are… kinda pointless? When will that come up?
- Each time I find a sentence like that I find that very discouraging. Learning Japanese is full of hurdles, I could do with less, personally.
This already starts with level N5 where introducing the speaker is longer than the actual sentence which got me into the habit of skipping everything before the actual sentence starts because my impression always was “You won’t understand it, anyway.”
I’m not against having the odd unusual word here or there or vocab from another level, but then it should always be accompanied by a full vocab deck card for study at the very least. I don’t see why I should use Yomitan (which I use elsewhere) to do Bunpro’s job. I no longer use Anki so while I look up stuff with Yomitan, I would still need to find the vocab in Bunpro to add it to my study.
I get the point of the people that say “Well, real Japanese is like that.” It’s fair enough, the language is hard, each language is full of stuff you still need to learn after decades. It’s just… you know, it’s N5 and N4… that’s just basic proficiency…? I’d say from N3 forward it’d make more sense, again in my opinion.
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This sentence hits hard. I love it.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything else @Hamamelis said in their response. When studying Japanese (or pretty much any language, for that matter) you’re eventually going to have to confront some things that are discouraging, frustrating, etc. It’s best to just embrace those occasions and take them as learning opportunities.
Embrace the grind!
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I don’t know about that. I opened up a cram and chose a random N5 lesson (turned out to be lesson 9) and set it up in complete mode meaning I did all 12 review sentences for each of the 13 items in the lesson. That was just over 150 reviews and only really saw 1 word that might be considered quite obscure (汽車) and 2 somewhat obscure words (花瓶、書き順）
There were definitely words that might be considered difficult based on their kanji, but all of those words are words that you are very likely to hear in daily conversation. You are right though, BP reviews do not come close to daily conversation. Daily conversation is much, much more complicated.
I do get the frustration to a certain extent, I also did not understand many words when I did N5 on BP. However, after living in Japan for a couple of years I can say that out of those 150 reviews I mentioned, Basically every word is something that I hear at least once a week. My advice to you would just be to skip over the words you don’t fully understand and focus on the actual meat and potatoes of the grammar point. For example in the following sentence
12月になってから、暖房を点けなくてはいけない。
You do not need to know the meaning of 暖房 to know that something must be turned on. All you really need to know is how to get from 点ける to つけなくてはいけない
Thereafter you’ll be equipped to say things like 電気をつけなくてはいけない etc.
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My thing with this is sure “Ghostship” is relatively rare but ghost and ship are not.
Sure technically it’s a an obscure word. But in reality it’s two very commons words glued together.
幽霊+船
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