Is vocab study on Bunpro actually good?

Bunpro
#1

Hello,

I have been using Anki for learning vocabulary. I am using the 10.000 word one and I don’t think ordering of that deck is great. I see many formal words before common versions because this deck was formed mainly by newspapers (as far as I know). When I looked at vocab decks on Bunpro, I felt like this is probably better at showing you the more common words first. So I was thinking about switching but I have few questions.

1- Is there someone who is using this for a while, do you think it is a good way to learn vocabulary? I learn Kanji using another website so I am not focused on that.

2- What are the review intervals? For example, as far as I know, when you learn a grammar at maximum level, Bunpro doesn’t even show it to you ever again. In Anki I can set that so my maximum review interval is 6 months for example. Is there such option? Or if I get to maximum level in a vocab, I won’t see it ever again? This is a deal breaker for me.

3- How ghost reviews work in Vocab?

Thanks

#2

I think it works as well as any flashcard vocab system, but with 2 advantages compared with others:

  1. Being able to type your English translation of a Japanese word and Bunpro tell you if you’re right or not, instead of / as an alternative to just marking your own homework Anki-style
  2. Being able to respond by “filling in the blank” in a full Japanese sentence instead of just doing a word-for-word translation, helping to give/learn contexts for each vocab word.

You can’t follow both of the above systems for any one particular vocab word though, so you have to pick between them :sweat_smile:

As far as I know, the review intervals for vocab are the same as for grammar, so yes, you won’t see anything again after reaching “Master”, unless you manually demote something to a lower SRS level anyway.

And as far as I know, there aren’t any ghost reviews for vocab (yet) - I’ve never got one anyway!

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#3

I’ve been using it since around March of last year, it’s mostly my sole way of learning words along with reading novels and articles, etc. So it’s definitely a good way for me but you’d have to find the way you want to learn and be able to stay motivated.

I use the cloze type which is the same as grammar and I couldn’t find anything like that in other apps like anki. I’m not sure what other apps have this though.

I think it’s better for me because everything’s in one app so it’s easier for me to stay organized and focused. I’d definitely recommend you try it and if you don’t like it you can try another method or stay with anki.

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#4

Thanks for the answers.

Problem is marking every word I know in Bunpro, it will take a while but I guess it is a good practice anyways so I will try I think.

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#5

It seems there is another thing, is there a way to use both Japanese>English and English>Japanese in reviews?

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#6

Yeah it’s tough to switch over, I just added all n5 and n4 words basically just started over and refreshed. I don’t believe my way was bad but it could get annoying to redo everything.

As of right now I’m pretty sure you can’t have both review types, but it has been asked and I believe the devs have said it’s on their list of to do’s.

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#7

I see. That’s not great. I believe that is a very important thing.

Then maybe I should wait until it gets improved because it seems to be missing some features.

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#8

I guess you could ask whether the things it’s missing are present in other apps.
If they are, definitely use the other apps.
But if not, maybe Bunpro is the best, albeit not perfect, way for now.

The Bunpro system definitely doesn’t have everything yet, but I think it has more than most and is getting better all the time.
Ultimately, it’s a matter of personal preference though - you can choose whatever works best for you :slight_smile:

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#9

I would suggest just using the reading mode on vocab then. Even if you already know the word seeing it in context and even just reading the sentence is great practice. I sped though n5 vocab that way and it actually increased my reading speed. I already knew 98% of the words so I found this to be the best way.

That being said, bulk select for vocab where you can select a bunch at once and mark mastered seems to be in the works. Likewise, you’ll probably be able to unmark them as well if you really feel the need the reset them. Could also wipe that entire deck for a reset any time you like presently. Cram for vocab has also been requested but can’t speak for the status of that

I never did the 10k Anki deck, did it have several example sentences for each word? Would the example sentences change after each review? Did it have native audio for that word and each example sentence that you didn’t have to add from somewhere yourself? Were you able to select a group of vocab to study based on N level? Did it have a dev team that regularly incorporates suggested features?

Don’t get me wrong Anki definitely has its place, but with the reasons above, it’s becoming more difficult to leverage Anki over bunpro for core vocab. For me at least ʕ⁠ ⁠º⁠ ⁠ᴥ⁠ ⁠º⁠ʔ

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#10

Desktop Anki with FSRS enabled is probably the most efficient way to review words and flashcards. Simply because right now there is no better algorithm. On top of that the process is just faster and more time efficient because you spend less than 10 seconds on a card and just press a button.

I believe you should just pick a better deck or just “mine” the words you encounter. A 10k words deck was probably a bad idea in the first place. The frequency past the first few thousands becomes irrelevant so in the end it’s more like you have a domain specific deck targetting newspapers which doesn’t sound like something you want.

So i’d say your options are :

  • Make your own deck on Anki with words you encounter
  • Try decks specific to your domain, there are plenty of japanese decks i’m sure you can find one
  • If you still want a frequency deck, Core 2.3k is the most popular and probably more than enough to start with. If you are passed that point I would limit myself to a Core 6k which i believe there are a few of them, but going for bigger decks sounds like a bad idea.

I believe Bunpro is amazing for grammar, but for learning vocab it’s probably not the best tool. It’s fine, but there is better and you are already using Anki so it sounds like a step back.

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#11

I posted a similar question a while ago and decided to follow one of the suggestions I received. Currently, I’m utilizing the Tango JLTP decks for Japanese to English and Bunpro for English to Japanese translations. This way I can practice both input and output. I know Anki has the option for sibling cards, but I find Bunpro to be really good for English to Japanese since you are always working with words in context and the sentences are always changing.

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#12

I have dumb question. Im doing some N4 vocab to try it out and got the word “SNS”, but the app won’t let me input non-hiragana letter. I’m guessing there’s a setting or something?

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#13

I’m not as well versed in the vocab side of BP as I’d like to be, but that might be a case of needing to input the word in the way it would be pronounced. So possibly something like エスエヌエス

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#14

なるほど！ありがとうございます

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#15

You could also just skip that one word, there are almost no words that are written in roman letters.

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#16

We’re currently talking about removing those words given the amount of confusion they cause

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