Is it me or is Bunpro just not as addictive as Wanikani?

Bunpro
#11

I think a lot of it as well is WKs restrictive level structure.

On Bunpro if you want to go straight to N1 grammar you can! Want to learn all of N5-N3 in a day without any prior knowledge? Go for it! (good luck).

On wanikani you know if you skip those reviews, not only are you going to have more pile up, you’re also going to miss the level up and are going to have to wait longer to level up.
WK dangles the carrot in front of your face, forever out of reach until you hit 60 while Bunpro tosses the carrot to you day 1 and says “have at it”.

I don’t have a strong preference either way. On one hand it’s nice having the structure and always making progress, on the other hand if I was forced to spend a month learning “desu” and basic particles before moving on I wouldn’t have signed up in the first place

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#12

turns out that Bunpro teaches grammar and grammar is harder, so less fun

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#13

tbh i really dislike Wanikani for this, i got to level 60 twice now, but then got things inbetween and i need to redo the last 20 levels, but this is just not nice if you have to resent and then also have to relearn the half that you know by heart already. just a waste of time in my opinion

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#14

You can unburn items in WK, it is a bit time consuming but you can just relearn the vocabulary and kanji you struggle with without having to reset;-)

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#15

I don’t know if either is more addicting or addicting by itself at all for me. At the end of the day I don’t really separate the tools I use for studying Japanese in that way. For me, the addictive part is the overall experience of gradually coming to understand a new language. Sometimes I remember where I read about some random thing I come across, but the actual reward for all this is noticing the progress I’m making with material in Japanese. I guess that means any single tool can’t be addictive for me by definition since when I’m looking at these tools in isolation, there is no reward…

If I had to pick one I’d probably pick bunpro simply because remembering vocabulary on its own just means I don’t have to use the dictionary as much. Figuring out unknown grammar is much more difficult.

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#16

This. Well said.

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#17

Good norning everyone!

It is always great and interesting to see how different people experienced different learning tools. Something that came to mind as I read the thread: An integrated lite RPG a la Habitica or just a way of turning Bunpro Experience into Habitica points would maybe help those of us to respond to this kind of incentives (there is an extension like this for Anki).

Have a great weekend!

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#18

I struggle with this as well. Between Anki, WK, and BP, BP gets the short end of the stick every time. I think this is not just due to the difficulty by comparison, but because of two things in particular: BP still sometimes doesn’t give me what I feel like are the specifics I need to remember certain very similar grammar points with small distinctions. Like みたい/らしい/だって/そう and such. That, and I learned a lot of stuff out of order when I was in Japan studying at a university, and I used BP to study the grammar I was learning. So I have a lot of fairly disparate points scattered around that are often of high difficulty, and a few too many of those probably piled on at once.

I really do like BP on the whole. More than likely, what I need to do is see if I can reset some stuff and try to tackle it slowly and systematically again like I did in the beginning. I’ve been in school for the last several years and just graduated, so now I may have the free time to do that a bit while I apply for jobs.

#19

Well, just think that one day you will be writing in Japanese as good as you do in English (or whathever you native tonge is…). Japanese is my 5th language and I still do some reading and practicing in the other 4 languages, but now I am focused in learning Japanese. There is no magic bullet for learning and mastering a new language. That is a skill that requires a lifetime of sharpening and practicing. Just relax and enjoy the ride !!!

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#20

i definitely get what you mean and i think BP can improve that further but for the points you mention in the grammar overview they have written down the nuances and the use cases

also japanese has many grammar points that only are different in register (e.g. formality/politeness), so it depends on you realising the register of the sentence to find to accurate grammar point

#21

I mean sure. But if I’m not getting it despite using Bunpro, and the point of using a program like this is to learn more effectively, then “just remember the nuances, and if you don’t, it’s your fault” is kind of missing the point. I mean I’m quite happy with Bunpro on the whole, don’t get me wrong, but there are definitely some things like this I still struggle with which could probably be taught a little better, or could better articulate the differences in a way that’s memorable. The differences are certainly articulated, but when learning them close together, it can still be hard to recall the info well.

But of course it’s also an issue of how I’ve studied, where I piled on a lot of those things at the same time because I was learning use cases for the ones I didn’t already know all at the same time, which certainly doesn’t help. But this is how tools improve. Likely most people on BP are not learning in Japan at a university using Japanese textbooks, cherry-picking individual points from across a spectrum of JLPT levels in BP just to reinforce their textbook learning, like I was. But that too was something of a weakness with BP until they added the paths, which was great, since JLPT level is really a totally useless and arbitrary distinction for any reason beyond taking the JLPT. BP keeps improving and growing, so I have hope some of these things will get beefed up a bit through iterative improvements along the way. It’s definitely the next big phase of my study once I can start dedicating time to it again.

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#22

sorry that i got that impression across, while i said what i said, its the 4th time i used bunpro, the other 3 times it was not addictive enough and i stopped doing it and also like you said i often had trouble getting the nuances. i think its just that i also saw those grammar passively a lot now that it is easier for me. so i think your criticism is correct

#23

I also just find the Wanikani app to be far more polished and snappy than the Bunpro app, and I generally think Wanikani’s design ensures a better balance of new content vs reviews that Bunpro does far worse at. That said, they teach different things so can’t replace one with the other.

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#24

There is no WK app, just some generous 3rd party contributors and a brief beta last year. I believe AlliCrab fell apart due to an ios upgrade. Pre-C19, I used Tsurukame quite a bit out of necessity but if had to do WK on a standard browser with no control of typos or basic scripts, I might have gone insane. Credit to BP as younger platform, at least they had a native app upon release…I see Bunpyro is doing well but I’ve never seen it.

I think it’s a hard balance between a rigid single path system which is great for beginners and a customized one which beginners get lost easier. If for example, a new user want to study N2 then they start today with BP…with WK you may not even get there in a year but their service seems to be very easy for beginners to start with.

#25

Feels like a mildly inflammatory thing for you to post, but alright, I dig it.

I feel like Bunpro treats me more like an adult, and Wanikani treats me like a child. Wanikani deliberately curbs my learning a lot, and sends me to the doghouse over typos.
Bunpro lets me decide my own fate, and I will always appreciate that about you, Bunpro.

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#26

I think Bunpro is less addicting because of what other people said:
It isn’t trying as hard to be addicting as wanikani
grammar isn’t as flat memorization as vocab/kanji.

I find this in both bunpro an kanshudo that I want to finish all of the exercises in my textbook, before I go on to the next lesson which slows me down.

I guess if I do bunpro’s srs, and only look use genki for the ones I have trouble with it would be snappy.

#27

I can’t stand WaniKani. My study style requires autonomy. I find that I often have bursts in motivation, which would just go straight to the gutter with something like WaniKani. That’s why I appreciate methods like RTK and BunPro.

Like for real, I learned (and wrote - hella important to write it out) over 1,800 kanji-keyword pairs via RTK in 30 days. From there, I slowed down significantly on the RTK system. After I eventually got past the 2,000 mark, I found that I didn’t even need to finish it anymore - I can just add vocab to my Anki and well over 9/10 times, I know the keywords for all kanji in the term. If I don’t, learning any new kanji is a breeze as I rarely don’t know all the radicals/constituent parts (and I’ve never had more than one unknown part to a new Kanji so far).

Athough I still like using mnemonics for the Kanji themselves, over time, I found I don’t even need to explicitly make mnemonics for connecting the Kanji in vocab - just writing out the RTK keywords on my Anki cards is enough. Over time, you start encountering the Kanji enough that just the reading of the word is a huge aid in remembering which Kanji the term consists of.

If I had used a system like WaniKani, I’d probably have gotten little to no use out of my month-long burst of motivation. And then I’d probably be at like only the 300th kanji by now because I would be slowed down with the vocab they offer. Instead, I’m now able to pair my knowledge of kanij keywords with YomiChan to dive into media and find the vocab that I want to add, not what some program has predetermined for me.

Likewise, I love that BunPro gives me autonomy. I wouldn’t have it any other way. There times when I just want to review what I’ve done that day, and then there are times where I’ll go through an entire Tobira chapter in the next day or two. My studying habits depend on these bursts.

That isn’t to say I’m not consistent, though. I just like the ability to choose when to go into “learning new material mode” and days where I’m just like “yeah, today is a review-only day - and maybe I’ll leave half of them for tomorrow.”

BunPro gives me flexibility without making me feel like I’m wasting money down the drain. With WaniKani, any deviation from what the robot tells you means lost money - there is no making it up the next day. If you don’t wake up at 4 AM to do your reviews for the next hour or more, that is one more hour that you are paying for and cannot make up for, no matter how diligent you are overall.

That anxiety alone is enough to make me shudder.

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#28

I use both Wanikani and Bunpro, and I’ve found myself more… consistent with Bunpro, I guess? So I guess that lends itself to addictability?

I’ve ended up falling into review hell a fair few times with WK, and ended up resetting to 1 to try and build the habit up again (the idea of facing almost 1000 reviews of stuff I’d definitely forgotten was too daunting). I’m definitely back into the swing of things now, and it’s given me stuff to do when I’m at my desk.

However, I like the self-pacing in Bunpro. If I’m not getting enough reviews, then I learn a few more points. I think I’m fairly slow (180/218 on N3, with N4/5 done), but I don’t mind that. As long as I do it daily, and add new points when and as I feel ready, I feel like I’m getting something out of it. And I get a weird little rush when I notice some grammar in the wild, and now when I listen to music, or I’m earwigging in the staff room, I’m picking up bits and pieces and putting them together. Even if I only vaguely understand, or don’t know what they’re actually talking about, I’m still getting something from it.

I have to be a lot stricter with myself on Bunpro, though. That backspace… I should remove it from my keyboard sometimes.

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#29

I definitely struggle more with the grammar points. They take more effort to learn and are more complex and difficult to remember. That definitely works against “addictability”.

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#30

A lot of good points. To add, as a game developer I see core differences in gamification:

  • BunPro requires opt-in for advancement, while WaniKani doesn’t. BP has no concept of pending lessons, so unless you manually start lessons, you only have old reviews, which slowly dry up. WK constantly pushes you because finishing reviews gradually unlocks lessons which are presented as TODOs, and those add more reviews, and so on, giving you a short and consistent game loop. BP could solve it by doling out lessons proactively, based on already learned items’ SRS state.

  • BunPro progress steps are much larger. On WaniKani, I can finish a single level and feel like I’ve made clear measurable progress. I get a congratulatory email, the dashboard changes completely, I unlock a bunch of new lessons, etc. On BP the “levels” are meaningless, and the actual progress is mainly tracked through the N5/N4/N3/N2/N1 progress bars. To get the satisfaction of a “level up” I would have to finish a whole N level, which is a much, much larger amount of effort than a single WK level, and the further away the reward is, the less motivation a user has to work toward it. BP could solve this by splitting each N# level into chunks, showing them prominently, and making a big ceremony of finishing a chunk.

When I was preparing for JLPT and my stay in Japan, I preferred BP’s approach because I could do intensive studying - I got from scratch to N4 in a few months. Now that I’m back and Japanese is no longer my main priority, I prefer WK’s approach because I can maintain it passively and still feel like I’m making clear progress. I think the two approaches can totally be merged, though.

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