I started Bunpro a few days ago to use it in conjunction in Wanikani. While the I’ve seen that Bunpro is really good for learning grammar, I’ve been quite overwhelmed by the amount of vocab that it throws at you without even learning the kanji for it. Am I using the vocab system incorrectly? Currently it seems to me that the vocab system expects you to memorize these things without learning it properly and doesn’t even quiz you on recognition, making it effectively useless if you encounter said vocab in the wild.
I find the vocab is fine - but no, it’s not going to teach you the kanji.
I feel like they’re kind of separate things. Wanikani is great if you want to learn kanji and be able to recognise kanji when you see them in the wild - but it doesn’t make you recall the word on its own.
The vocab here is useful for being able to pull a word (verbally) out from that filing cabinet in your brain.
Bunpro’s strongest point is of course the grammar points though, hence the name.
I set all mine to reading mode and only practice recognition so I can instead focus on reading a ton. I figure seeing a word hundreds of times in context while reading will do most of the work. Of course it will still be difficult to write or talk, but I think getting a strong grasp at reading and reading a massive amount will give a strong foundation for production.
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I also use WaniKani as my “main” learning tool, and I use Bunpro as support tool for grammar and vocabulary reinforcement. Set Grammar to read & grade, set vocabulary to translate only. Each morning, I either do 1 or 2 grammar lessons, or I go over one page of vocabulary deck and add words that I already know from WK, or I already saw them somewhere multiple times and I think I should know them.
It is pretty slow, but it reinforces the knowledge I have and gives me time to process grammar. Sometimes when I have extra time, I go over one book on Free Tadoku Books and I try to find corresponding entries on Bunpro so I can add them to my queue.
When comparing WK and Bunpro, I find that WK is better at actually teaching new things, while Bunpro is better at reinforcing them. They use different SRS intervals, maybe that is the reason. If I add 10 new items on WK, I can remember them in a day or two, but if I add 10 items here, I will keep failing them for a week or more. But, if I struggle with some word, adding it to Bunpro queue actually helps me remember it much sooner.
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If I add 10 new items on WK, I can remember them in a day or two, but if I add 10 items here, I will keep failing them for a week or more. But, if I struggle with some word, adding it to Bunpro queue actually helps me remember it much sooner.
I don’t share this experience. I do 30 WK words a day and regularly run out of vocab to do and grab mined words from anki and JLPT words from bunpro since I like the varied context sentences they give. I seem to have about the same retention on both sites, but some specific words I will struggle with more than others which heavily depends on which kanji they actually use and whether I’ve seen the word while reading before or not.
I think the default on wanikani is recognition and the default on bunpro is production so that might be why you’re finding one more difficult than the other. Additionally, WK will only feed you words with Kanji you already know while Bunpro throws you whatever so you’re expected to either learn the kanji through the vocab by bruteforcing it or supplement with kanji recognition knowledge elsewhere (like RTK).
It would probably be pretty doable for Bunpro to make a simple kanji deck one day by serving some of the most common words used with each kanji and only feeding you words with kanji you’ve already done SRS on just for recognition, but I’m mainly here for grammar and I think that goes for most people so it might not be their best use of time.
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I think this is useful in its own right in parallel to learning kanji elsewhere.
Learning kanji and vocab is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Kanji that are not used in any words I know don’t stick. Words with kanji I don’t know don’t stick.
From this perspective, listening to a full sentence several times helps to create a sound anchor to which you can then link both the written word and used kanji. This sentence could come from anime/youtube/conversations, or, from Bunpro.
Don’t worry, the overwhelmed feeling is not going away any time soon 
. I have around 8k words in the process of SRSing on JPDB, and still get overwhelmed every day.
If anything, JPDB’s approach of going through kanji in the order in which they appear in your target words&sentences (for example coming from Bunpro sentences via JPDBReader) might be more productive than WK’s predetermined order that you don’t associate with any native content. But JPDB doesn’t provide mnemonics so there’s that.
Are they even helpful? I honestly don’t even look at them and never managed to use them in the first place. It’s harder to remember a convoluted story than just associate a picture or two with a word or general concept of words. I Just mark all kanji until guru as correct regardless of getting it right and grind vocab. By the time I get new words or kanji I struggle with I’ll have solved some of the previous one’s anyways.