Is bunpro really worth it?

Bunpro
#30

It highly depends on what is you want to use Japanese for.

I am not good at remembering grammar, but need it for obvious reasons, especially now that I signed up for JLPT. I tried different methods, bunpro was the most suitable for me.

Bunpro is good to force grammar points into your brain, if that is what you need. It is what I need.

Especially, when I type the third conjugation version of the same grammar point and get the message of “can you use a more casual form” or something along those lines, and I just want to chuck my phone out of the window and stomp around like a Gondzilla, that gives a lasting impression on my brain. Unfortunately that happens quite a few times, so many grammar points are associated with full rage in my brain…

Edit: I do not like the vocab feature though, anki somehow is more suitable for me when it comes to vocab.

Edit2: bunpro has a lot of features, grammar, vocab, kanji, reading materials, jlpt tests, so it is worth the money in my opinion and from what I have seen over the years, it is one of the most wholesome apps out there when it comes to Japanese language learning apps.

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#31

Bunpro works the best for my preferences. I started with Genki but found that it felt like a chore for me to read a textbook, so I kept putting it off. I tried a few other recommended textbook-like resources, but reading about grammar for chapters and chapters felt a lot less fun than learning it in a bite-sized way and immediately applying it/seeing examples. Bunpro works way better with my learning style (and schedule), and I do think making learning fun is super important.

I just use Bunpro and WaniKani for grammar/vocab stuff because adding in another SRS (Anki) would make me go insane. I also immerse with podcasts/manga.

I also spent way too much time in the first 2-3 months of learning seeking out what other people were doing to learn so I could do it the correct, most efficient way. It felt like wasted time I could’ve spent just… learning lol. But truthfully, there are so many different approaches that have proven to be successful.

Ultimately, finding something you’ll actually stick with is best.

#32

Tae Kims was such a good resource, it helped my brain stop looking for 1:1s. When I found it, I was really frustrated with Japanese because of how duolingo was teaching me… turns out, translation without explaination isnt the best way to learn a language like Japanese :laughing:
(Im looking at you ですが。)
（読解）新完全マスター SPRUNG me into N4 reading. Now it all seems so obvious when before it was just a nonsensical mess :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

Disclaimer: Duolingo was extremely helpful to solidify vocab and form my own sentences… so I still like it, but I got past the point where it seems human thought was put in. So for a while at least, I’ve opted out of the filler crap past score 60… @/ me when its a bit less of a slog :woozy_face:

OHOH! @kanjimoister888 you should get HiNative, regardless of what you choose to do if you havent already! Early on, even bunpro struggles to explain concrete differences between basic vocab points. But on HiNative you can get the “vibes” haha!

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#33

You didn’t become proficient at any of the languages you speak via SRS, so why would it be different with Bunpro?
It took you 6 years to speak like a 6 year-old in your native language, 6 years of learning. No SRS.
No single resource can make you proficient. If they promise you that, they’re lying. It takes copious amounts of consumption of native material.
I like Bunpro because it forces me to learn grammar, something I have always hated in any of the languages I’ve learnt.
Have fun learning!

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#34

Bunpro is likely enough to pass. To score perfect in listening and grammar/vocab on N2, I had to supplement with lots of podcasts, 新完全マスター, Try! N2, and practice exams.

Reading was also not difficult as I had been practicing reading with children/ teen novels in addition to 新完全マスター読解, however I got hung up thinking about the weird wording on a couple of the questions (multiple answers seemed half-right) so I ran out of time on the very last question :man_facepalming:. The articles being deceptively simple in comparison to the questions is something to be wary of.

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#35

Wanikani + Bunpro from zero to N2 pass on my end and N1 in progress.

Bunpro is, at worst, $150 for 5, searchable textbooks from N5 to N1 grammar.
Genki I and II is ~$100 by comparison, and barely covers N5/N4. Once you start adding in the other features, the cost of lifetime actually seems a bit too low.

The biggest Bunpro issue is that it doesn’t stop you from adding more and more to the pile. With 0 guidance and a default “learn 3 grammar” every day, basic math says you’ll be done in 300 days (~900 grammar points). That’s 65 days short of what the Japanese learning speed runners claim they can do! :upside_down_face:

But you can cheat on the JLPT by using the power of vibes and knowing the answer is never どういたしまして！ Vibes is - if they ask a question tone of voice, the answer is usually not another question tone… etc.

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#36

If it makes you feel better, I would imagine this is likely the scenario for the vast majority of modern users who are starting their journey with 40000 learning options/paths available. Choice paralysis is certainly a major thing in Japanese :sweat_smile:

We’ve added a bit more guardrails to this in recent memory, largely being a warning that shows to users when they begin to add more Items that exceed their daily goal. We don’t want to stop people entirely from learning more if they choose to (perhaps one day someone is super motivated to learn 4 new grammar points), but also we want to explicitly tell people what will happen if this becomes a regular thing etc.

There is also no real ‘default’ for users anymore in the reworked Onboarding when creating a new account - user will learn their first GP and then after that decide whether they think they could do 1 / 3 / 5 of those a day going forward. Still not perfect, by trying to hone in on avoiding scenarios like we’ve seen in the past where a user adds way too much way too quickly is one of our missions again this year. Little by little I guess :mage:

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#37

Were you using reading or cloze style questions to get though n1?

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#38

At that time there was only Cloze (and no Vocab).

Not sure what I’d do if I had my time again!

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#39

I never considered myself a speedrunner and did this just fine, but the thing is even if you complete Bunpro grammar in under a year you still need a ton more practice as most of the knowledge was still not really internalized and reading was fairly slow despite reading a ton of Manga and VNs and listening was just not there yet. I would not have passed N1 at the moment I added the last grammar point to the pile either way because my understanding of the grammar itself was pretty shallow and fuzzy and I lacked a lot of the higher level vocab having instead focused on immersion frequency. Add another year of several hours a day immersion for a more realistic pace of internalizing most of the Bunpro grammar. I would have been lucky to do N2 with a barely passing grade for everything except listening where I would probably (almost definitely) have failed, but it’s hard to judge in retrospect.

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#40

On my road to N1 I did all the grammar reading first, and now am doing Cloze. I think that’s making the journey smoother. But all the vocab I’m doing is reading.

#41

Been using almost exclusively Bunpro for about a year and got to the point where I can watch and understand a lot of slice of life / simpler animes without subtitles whatsoever, am able to handle most situations in Japan in Japanese, hold smalltalk and similar things. I’m nowehre close to the N1 in a year speedrunners and there’s surely people who progress faster than I did even on Bunpro. But for me, someone who has other hobbies, and works a lot, having an app where I can squeeze in some spontaneous high-intensity Japanese study time whenever I have a free minute, is high value.

Bunpro has been the vast majority of my study-time, and after I year I can effectively function in Japanese to a useful degree, and didn’t have to rely on translation apps anymore, the last time I was there. Far from fluent, but I’ll get there someday. Bunpro alone has turned out to be a very “worth it” way to learn Japanese.

You didn’t ask me but I see a lot of people on the forums who don’t use cloze because it takes too much time. I switched to reading for a while and realized that I, at best, add those words to passive vocab but never use them if I do it that way. Cloze has turned out to be non-negotiable for me. Takes much more time, but at least I end up actually being able to recall a word in convo and really use it, if I learn it with cloze.

Lots of people simply don’t care about the JLPT

Bunpro alone will not be able to do that, but it is worth it to have it as part of the stack that will

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#42

How big a problem is this really, though? Or rather, how big a problem should it be perceived to be? If a user bites off more than they can chew, or ends up being busier than they thought they’d be, they can always drop items from their review queue and come back to them later. Wouldn’t a good solution just be highlighting the fact that adding something to the queue is not a blood pact, and the system is pretty flexible? I think people tend to have the view that their reviews are, like, assigned to them, and they’re at the mercy of the system. But that’s not true even in Anki. There’s no reason to act like they’re taking out a high interest loan. If anything, there ought to be more ways to drop things from the queue (like automatic leech tagging).

#43

The problem is that language learning is done best by daily consistent reviews. Having too many items in a queue can cause a motivation slump, especially if going through that queue you’re repeating the same mistakes and not learning.

Yes, there is flexibility in removing items, doing it over again, but a user having to repeat content isn’t exactly great either.

Source:

Screenshot_20260408-132104
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I ended up adding the N1 vocab deck too fast at 30 words a day, eventually 60 words a day at the end, then was ill for 4 days so my reviews piled up and I lost motivation for a few weeks. I’m back now and enjoying the grind through the cards, but many people would not find this rewarding.

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#44

this makes me weep

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#45

Like Hairymini mentioned below, severe motivation slumps arise when users add a lot very early on because the SRS really hasn’t “started” yet (i.e. items are showing up 2+ weeks afterwards) and suddenly after adding a bunch of points every day they’re now at something like 70+ reviews super early on. It’s true that some users could just manually go back and remove items, but that’s unfortunately not the average use-case and thus some lighter guardrails were implemented to help let users know what could happen if they keep going over their daily limit.

It isn’t like we lock users into a queue or hand tie them; there are some days users may study 1 less than their daily goal, there are also some days where they study 1 extra one if the Items were a bit on the easier side. There will be some other things we’ll likely add along the way, like some sort of automatic leech system like you talk about, but we’ve seen a big improvement in not as many users being frustrated as before the system was put into place so that’s a big win in my books.

I guess one more thing to add - I think your point about the system being flexible, etc. is an important & great one. I think majority of users after a month or so find out what pace works best for them, when to slow down and not do all of their daily goals because their review queue is piling up too high for their liking, etc. My point is more about users within their first month who don’t really fall under that category since it’s too early for that knowledge to set in yet

#46

Hope that’s not all cloze+input

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#47

It’s uhhh… Reading. But I’m working through the grammar with Cloze again to boost my writing.

#48

any translation gang here, , , , I dont have time for reading example sentences (tho I use cloze for grammar)

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#49

I will sing the praises of reading mode until Bunpro 2 comes out. It’s helped my comprehension so much.

I also don’t do enough reading of normal native material which is my problem…

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