It's getting harder to recommend Bunpro

Bunpro
#61

And, yes. I want to do more than just :heart: this post, so I’ll say a few more words. Ironically :laughing:

On one hand, yes, some of this contention helps BunPro grow as a product… but damn, man, the amount of ink spilled over nitpicking details that will never matter to anyone in this thread (and so many other places out there on the 'net) is painful to read.

No one product will ever be omnipotent in teaching anyone, and they’ll have to just jump into the real world of that language at some point and start taking the “live and learn” approach when they find out they tripped up.

There is a “good enough” point where it stops being worth anyone’s time or energy to hem and haw over points of the language, and recognizing when you’re there is important.

Unless it’s your job :wink: or you reeeeeeally just love linguistics. And if it’s the latter, bring your love to the table, not your ego, y’know?

13 Likes
#62

I have read a couple times that an article on linguistics needs peer review. If that is the case is this forum not that? I am a bit disgusted by the appeal to authority. Peer review is not some catch all for truth. If you mean that people with adequate knowledge of a subject should go over the work and critique it where is it needed; That is literally this forum. And especially when it comes to language praxis you can ask a native with a relative high competency for comparison. Or consult the JAPANESE literature concerning the development of the language.

The idea that the Bunpro team should wait to give answers of albeit complicated or nuanced or in the weeds aspects of language until they submit a paper to who? Some golden linguist coven. Ridiculous.

This is not to say that they are right, but an obvious fact that most people who use Bunpro seem to to not understand. Is that it is ONLY a tool for learning about the language., and an SRS to reinforce aspects you have hopefully acquired through immersion in a Japanese context.

It is impossible, categorically, to use Bunpro exclusively to come to have the capacity to speak or write in Japanese. It is extraordinarily helpful in getting you there, precisely because there is a team of people who’s jobs it is too explore and structure Japanese grammar in a digestible in a constructive way.

I want even their crackpot and wild theories on grammar. However they should use prudence and tact when offering these ideas and have peer review here on the forum and us as customers should not take this site as gospel but investigate further to continue the advancement of this language and its learning.

The originator of this thread has every right to question and argue about the nuance of a point. But he was a bit rude. That is this his right. The Bunpro team is a bit recalcitrant as is there right. Let’s have a constructive conversation.

Source I am a philosopher of both science and language I have a piece of paper that says so. Allegedly that matters.

みんさん日本語上手ですな〜
（日本語で笑う）

Apologies ahead for the inevitable typos that I will edit. I’m writing on my lunch break have to go back to work.

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#63

This seems like an ugly thread but what I like about Bunpro is that the content while not 100% complete, or maybe not even 100% perfect, is comprehensive enough for nearly your whole Japanese learning journey. I really appreciate the coverage from N5-N1, and the frequent updates are extremely welcome, unlike Wanikani which hasn’t had a content update in years and is in desperate need of one. I would personally recommend this site to anyone.

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#64

Wow, there’s quite a bit to unpack here.

Okay, first of all no. Posting on a forum does not count as “peer review”. There’s no appeal to authority when you ask “Can you find me some academic literature that supports your claims?” People in these forums (including myself) do not count as experts in whatever stuff we are discussing. Heck, 99% of the population (including most language teachers) don’t fall into this “experts” group either. We tend to leave that category to actual published authors and researchers that literally spend their life studying the intricacies of certain specific aspects of the language (not even the whole of it). That’s usually what “peer review” means, it means you get reviewed by your peers, aka people who have done similar studies and are at the literal forefront of research for that field. Not a forum of Japanese learners.

I don’t think anyone claimed they need to publish peer reviewed papers if they want to engage in forum discussion. However if you’re making certain claims that don’t seem to be supported by any literature whatsoever, and especially as one of the leading Japanese grammar learning platforms, surely you can understand people might be a bit sceptical if you don’t provide any sources. This is even more important if you do put those crackpot theories into your own (paid) grammar explanations as facts that then people use to study and learn from. You want to have your own separate “fun” blog with whatever written on it? Go wild, it might actually be interesting to read.

For what it’s worth I agree with your opinion about the tone of the thread, but it’s good to understand that before this thread was created there had been multiple feedback tickets going back and forth with staff pushing back on all of these points saying “No, we are correct” despite the fact that, indeed, they were not correct. Had this thread not been made (and likely with the tone it was made in), nothing would’ve likely changed.

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#65

You seem to literally not understand the words you just said. It literally does.

I’ll clarify. I explicit REGECT exactly the notion that a panel of experts does or does not decide truth value of statements made by lay people. The modern version of peer review in academia is broken and gamed.

The category of a published author is someone with who a great deal of respect can come. Their opinions can carry a great weight but it does not make it truth.

This is not too say the ant lay person necessarily is correct about their presuppositions are not faulty in a myriad of ways. Neither does it make their necessarily wrong.

I agree the lack of general citation of the language or commentaries related to the point in question shows a lack of critical examination that in all cases Is not desired.

That is the point.

1 Like
#66

I don’t know how to put this without being rude but you are literally one of the original instigators for the “tone” of this thread.

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#67

Before you brought it up only two people had mentioned peer review. Jake floated the possibility of submitting the Bunpro team’s theories for peer review. In response I mentioned that they would probably need to get a lot more rigorous if they planned to do so. No one said anything about whether peer review is valuable, whether it is working properly or broken, or anything of the sort. And no one suggested Bunpro needed to do academic peer review in order to deploy their product.

What I said is that linguistic training, such as what you would receive in a graduate (and even an undergraduate) program in linguistics, is useful and Bunpro should consider consulting those with such training if they intend to make novel contributions in the field of Japanese grammar (which Jake suggested they may intend to do).

9 Likes
#68

peer review /ˌpɪə rɪˈvjuː/ noun

  1. evaluation of scientific, academic, or professional work by others working in the same field.

I understand your skepticism towards the academic process and I do agree that it could be better but posting on a language learning forum is still not a better substitute for that. Even if you want to go by the most lax definition of what “peer review” might mean, someone working at Bunpro whose task is to teach grammar and someone who’s a language learner/beginner who’s learning that grammar discussing the same theory (with mostly no sources btw) still does not count as peer reviews. It’s like a teacher coming up with some new theory and explaining it to their students and having their students go “wow that’s cool” and then them claiming it’s been “peer reviewed”. The teacher and the students aren’t peers.

Regardless of any of this, this point is a bit silly anyway. All people have been asking for is to substantiate claims that were being made with some actual evidence (or even just some effort beyond “trust me bro”) and as you can see those claims have now been removed because they really weren’t helpful or useful (or correct). We all have our own ideas of how the language might work and can use our intuition to have a shared understanding (based on what we studied and what we acquired through experience) and that’s the reason why we don’t need to be citing academic papers every time something grammar/language related comes up, but if you go a bit beyond that and make claims about stuff that doesn’t hold to even the thinnest of layman scrutinies, I think it’s reasonable to ask for a bit more than that to back your claims. Especially if you put it forward from a place of authority.

My tone might be a bit direct but I don’t think I’ve been really rude or disrespectful, or even an “original instigator”. I only posted twice earlier in the thread asking for sources (mainly from curiosity and honest desire to discover new things) and shared my own personal opinions and findings (after reading some of the literature, despite being outside of my domain and clearly acknowledging that).

On the other hand I’ve seen a few people that seemed to have joined this thread with only the intention to criticise the people asking for revisions, showing an incomplete understanding of what the problem was with the wrong explanations, and actively claiming to have no interest in the internal workings of the language and yet feel like they need to provide an opinion on how such details should be explained even if incorrect.

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#69

Okay, so, I don’t agree with everything Bunpro is adding. Personally I think they should focus on grammar. But jeez, do the (luckily very few!) posts in this thread that actually support the “I can hardly recommend Bunpro anymore” statement feel like overreactions.

Bunpro is a learning tool. Did it help you in your journey of learning Japanese? Up to a certain point, at least? Apparently up to a very high level point, considering the knowledge you display in the complaints? Do you regret the time spend using Bunpro, or do you just feel like it’s not serving you well anymore at the moment or wish it was a bit different?

Alright, you don’t like the direction Bunpro is taking. That’s fair. Blowing the point up beyond recognition doesn’t help, but that feeling is fair. But do you really feel that if you’d start from zero right now, and use the current Bunpro instead of the one you started with, you’d end up at a worse spot?

Because if not, it certainly still sounds very recommendable to me.

And I’d be very surprised if anything positive is still coming out of this extremely derailed thread. Feels like this should’ve been a series of private messages or mails, not a forum thread. Best wishes to the Bunpro team, keep your chin up while this thread lasts, and thanks for continuing to improve this big part of my Japanese journey!

Also, finding and spending the time reading this thread is easily the worst thing that happened to my Japanese learning today. Meanwhile, Bunpro continues to be a huge help. Getting back to those reviews now…

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#70

It’s not like people had already weeks of back and forth exchanges in private messages/feedback tickets with the devs before this thread.

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#71

Yeah. And it’s a pity that it seems that something there didn’t work out.

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#72

Thanks for all the feedback everyone :relaxed:

I think the initial concerns expressed when the thread was created have been addressed and the thread has veered a bit off topic and split into a variety of different conversations so I am going to go ahead and lock the thread. It will be here if anybody wants to reference to it should they wish to continue their discussion in new, contained threads or through DMs.

We received a ton of encouragement as well as some great constructive criticism that we will discuss internally to try to get to the root cause and then work to implement solutions.

Thank you again for taking the time to read and add your thoughts to this thread. Threads like this one are just as important and motivating as ones that only contain positive feedback because they help us see where we are falling short and where we can put in the extra effort to improve the overall Bunpro experience for everyone. :heart:

40 Likes
#73