Hi everyone, I’m new to Bunpro so I’m sorry if this question is a bit stupid.
I selected the hardest pace when I made my account, which was supposed to be 5 grammar points a day. The learn tab showed that I had 5 to do, so I did them. After that, I was immediately directed to a page to do more, and the learn tab was still showing that I had 5 to do. So I did another 5. And then another. And yet it’s still showing that I have 5 to do, after already having done 15 in one sitting.
I’ve just come from WaniKani, so maybe I’m misunderstanding and Bunpro doesn’t restrict you as much and allows you to do as much as you want at one time? But then why is the 5 in a red square, kind of like a notification? It’s really hard to ignore lol.
You can add or not add as many things as you want. As far as I know WK is the only SRS around that stops you from doing what you want in this regard. You can even make that red square go up to 10 in the settings It isn’t a notification, just the batch size.
Meta comment: This or similar issues come up a surprising amount when WK users start using Bunpro. No idea if there is an easy way to address it.
10,000 percent the reason I don’t use it. Simply predatory.
In response to the thread, that just indicating the next batch, the review button is the actual notification so to speak of what you are being asked to do.
introduced my housemate to bunpro yesterday and he found this exact same problem. just kept learning grammar points until eventually turning to me to say he thought it was only supposed to be 3 a day and why has he already done 20. maybe this needs to be made clearer for new users?
I disagree. You’re paying WK for that additional structure. I’m not a learning expert; I don’t want to become one either. I want to be told exactly how many I should learn at a time, how often and when I need to give my brain a rest. WK’s first 3 levels are free with no time limit, and that’s plenty of time to know what you’re getting into. That’s pretty generous for a “Predatory” title.
I think anyone who is just starting Japanese should start with WK and move to grammar once they hit level 10.
As for Bunpro, I find its structure to be lacking. The OP’s question and the high number of related ones about how many to learn at a time are proof of it. In this way, Bunpro is essentially a textbook where chapters named “lessons” with SRS as a self-testing method.
Despite this, I chose to get a lifetime membership, and I think Bunpro is great and pairs extremely well with WK.
when i joined i got confused and added 25 grammar points as well lol. maybe have a special notification the first time a person completes a batch explaining that “You’ve met your daily goal, you have the option to continue to exceed your daily goal”
I think we can probably do better in this regard. It’s very (too) easy to just keep studying things, and then get overwhelmed. There will always be those that want to blaze through vs those that are in it for the long haul. I’ll have a chat to the team about how we can make that aspect of progression more obvious for the user.
I also didn’t use WK for the lack of control, but can’t say it’s predatory. Just a very different model that requires the potential user to be willing to invest a lot of time upfront. Something some of us can and some of us can’t do.
Within the field of teaching, there are very few learning experts, which is one of the reasons we don’t really want to touch user freedom. To be a learning expert, you need to-
- Know and meet the needs of the individual student.
- Know the content that is being taught extremely well, and be able to preempt snags that people will hit along the way to mastery.
- Be passionate about the material, not just knowledgeable.
- Encourage self-directed growth, allowing the student to find their feet themselves.
We may not be the world leading authority on learning Japanese, but I can guarantee that we care more about our students than almost any teacher I’ve ever had.
Just a general thought that we should all be careful about who we label experts, and what is required to warrant that label.
It’s not really the thread to air my grievances for Wanikani, so I won’t go on, maybe I’ll write something up.
Regarding the conversation on “language learning expert” I can appreciate this concern. As a language educator I tend to have sympathy to people who just want a relatively easy system to just learn. Clocking in and clocking out, just doing the work.
My deep worry, is that meta learning is one of the core skills to success. Learning how to learn in general as well as what works best for oneself, is key to learning outcomes in the long run. You have to take control of your own education to be successful.
Either way, add this to the pile of clunky onboarding to Bunpro that bounces of new users. If I could wipe my memory of Bunpro to help new users, ima. Bit tainted as I know too much to be helpful.
I read many posts, but this is my first time replying to one, and that is because this is just one annoying Bunpro feature. Can someone explain to me what the point of having that Learn number is? If I set the batch size to 3 which is what I had before, I will see a 3 there all the time. Even if I’m in the middle of studying grammar points, after I study one item, that number doesn’t go down to 2, or to 1 after studying 2 items. And I can’t stop a session after 1 item anyway and go back later to finish the remaining 2 items. Only after the quiz, the queue number changes to 0, but right away changes back to 3. In what circumstances would it ever show a different number?
It would be more useful if we could instead set the number of items we want to study per day and have the Learn queue show how many items are left to be studied for the day. If we wanted to study more items, we could still click on it to study more but knowing that we’ve already completed the goal for the day.
As for all the talk about Bunpro giving flexibility, it appears to assume that you study once a day, all grammar points for the day in one shot, with no flexibility to study less than the set batch size. I study a little in the morning and a little in the evening, and I want to study a set number of grammar points a day, As is, I set my batch size to 1, but I’m often having to go through the grammar point list to check how many items I studied for the day to make sure I study enough items and/or don’t study too many. And I don’t think I’m in the minority regarding wanting to study a set number of items per day. How many posts in this forum talk about how many items you should study per day? How many posts talk about how many items you should study per session?
Idk
I mean, I understand where you’re coming from, but personally I really enjoy the batch size method because I don’t only study once a day. But when I do study, I like having a set amount to do at a time, with the number still there for later. If I feel like doing a batch I will. If I feel up for it later in the day I’ll do another batch it might be harder to keep track of total per day if you’re doing 1 grammar per “batch” continuously throughout the day, but I remember if I’ve already done my batch of 5 or not.
For me the learn number is what I wanna do right now. Not later, not total for the day, but right now what can I do. I need the batch learn button there, otherwise I’ll see the daily number due and see it as a task that has to be done, rather than a quick learning burst for fun. Personally, having the learn act like review would be suffocating, and when I did manage to “finish” them, I wouldn’t go for more later because “I’m already done for the day”. I see how some people might want that, but to me it would stifle growth.
I don’t ever wanna be “done” learning ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
You can add grammar points to your review queue directly from their respective pages so it is entirely possible to what you want to do. The batch is there for people who want to do it in one session. Having said that I do see where you are coming from and I do wonder if the devs might think it makes sense to have an option for the batch size to be per session or per day. The ability to custom queue and manage what you are learning is a little lacking currently.
The reason there are posts talking about how much to study per day is due to future review load. Discussions about per session are probably less fruitful as it highly depends on the individual (review load does as well but the discussions are normally about predicting future work and not how much work one can do in a one off sesson/day).
I thought I would just chime in here. We are looking into making it more clear how much you have studied each day and letting you set a soft limit of how many you want to do with a gentle reminder that you have already done your daily goal when you try to do more (but still letting you do more).
I don’t think you understood me. I don’t need to go to the grammar pages to add them to the review queue. I set my batch size to 1, so I can just click on the Learn button whenever I need to learn a grammar point, so adding grammar points is not an issue. The problem is that I often don’t know how many grammar points I already studied that day, so I have to go to the grammar pages and look up how many I studied.
Neither one of you explained the purpose of that Learn number and under which circumstances it would change to a number other than your set batch size number, i.e. that it actually has a purpose. My point is that, from what I can see, the Learn queue number is useless, and being there only causes confusion, so it should either be removed or be used for better purposes, like the number of items left to be studied for the day.
I never mentioned eliminating the batch size. I’m only talking about the Learn queue number that shows on top of the dashboard.
I understood you fine - I was just offering the only current work around I could think of for you (I.e., if you want to, for example, study 3 points a day but broken up in different sessions then add those 3 points to your review queue directly from their grammar pages and then study them in separate sessions as and when they come up in your reviews). I was also trying to agree with you that currently things are clunky regarding controlling your queue.
As it is, batch and learn are identical. The current purpose of it is to study a batch of a fixed size without having to navigate to extra pages, etc.
Regardless, I think what Jake mentioned probably solves your issues, right?
Your workaround would make things worse because if I don’t have time to study all 3 items when they come up for review, the other reviews due for the day would pile up behind the new items and I wouldn’t have a way to review them throughout the day. I can delay studying a new grammar point, but delaying a review screws up the SRS timings.
I see. I had assumed you would finish studying each day. Well, as I said, I think what Jake mentioned will solve your issues and until then I guess just keep a tally on a scrap of paper or something (笑)
I mean, I feel like we explained what the learn button was but ┐(´ー`)┌
Like Jake said, they’re already working on something. But what if next to the learn button (or in that general area) there was a wheel gauge of what you’re daily goal is, and how much you’ve done of it? Could be what they’re already planning. Either way, it seems like a solution for you is in the works already
If you read my posts again, you will see that I’ve never asked about what the learn button was for. I know what it does when I click on it. What I questioned was the purpose of having that number there on the button since it’s always your set batch size so it never changes. Is the number there because without it being there, you will not remember what you set as your batch size? It seems like a silly reason if that’s the only purpose, particularly if it confuses people since it’s not intuitive, which is why I suggested that it would’ve been more useful if that number was instead the number of grammar points left to study for the day.
Yeah hi again I’m just gonna take my leave of this convo with you
Last thing I’ll mention is that you can learn from multiple decks. So having that reminder of what the batch is set to for that deck is nice
I get what you mean the design of the button is too analogous to the review button, it confuses their purpose.