I believe the BunPro team mentioned a conjugation tool, or something to that effect, being in their plans for this year. I suggested something similar to 活用市, which is an excellent tool for practicing Japanese conjugations.
3 Likes
Whats that tool? There’s a couple I’m aware of but that sounds new.
1 Like
活用市 (かつようし) = Conjugation City:
It’s an iOS app (not sure if it’s also for Android) where you can practice verbs and adjectives, organized into JLPT levels (and there are tons, btw), in pretty much any Japanese conjugation possible (て form, た form, ます form, Volitional, Potential, Causative, Imperative, Passive, Causative-Passive, etc, etc).
You can create “sessions” where you can select the specific JLPT level and conjugations you want to focus on. It’s amazing!!
4 Likes
I can’t find anything called that in the App Store or even on Google. Mind sharing a link?
2 Likes
Actually have that app on my phone. 
2 Likes
The way we were thinking of implimenting our ‘Bungrow’, which is the phase two of the Bunpro grammar explanations, was going to be in a way that would take all of the synonym information from the bottom of the pages and (possibly) move it to somewhere a bit more obvious (its own tab next to resources for example) where there would be short descriptions on all of the synonyms for a particular grammar structure. This would probably not be quite as indepth as the blog posts you linked, but they would definitely cover the meat of the differences/nuances.
How we actually do end up implimenting phase 2 of the writeups is still not set in stone though, so take this with a grain of salt.
7 Likes
I think at Tofugu they can be as detailed as they are because they only do a few articles at a time. It would be a massive undertaking to write articles of that depth for every grammar point.
For this, covering the meat is all we need. If there will be short descriptions for each, maybe they can include showing how the meaning of an example sentence changes when a similar grammar point is used. That would take it from “here’s a list of different grammar points that have a similar feeling” (which is still quite helpful all by itself) to “here’s a list of different grammar points AND this is the real-world difference between them” and would help learners understand when or why to choose one over another.
If whatever the BunPro team has planned is anything like what they’ve already done, I have no doubt it will be incredibly helpful and informative.
I’ll also add that I’ve been studying Japanese for a very long time and only began using BunPro in August. But since then the progress I’ve made has been SO much more noticeable. I can pick out so many grammar points in the shows I watch, the music I listen to, or the games I play. Two very clear examples from just this week: One was when I was listening to a song the other day and realized I was understanding it! And yesterday I was working on a PowerPoint for work and I was able to seamlessly write some of what I was writing in English in Japanese as well. (It wasn’t a requirement of the work I was doing, it was more like “Oh I wonder if I can say this in Japanese…oh wow, I CAN!”)(And it just happened again, my brain went “それを日本語で言えるかな。。。” all by itself.) None of that happened before BunPro and I am so thankful (本当にありがとう！). Worth every penny and then some.
6 Likes
This is great. I definitely struggle with some conjugations still. Just fyi it’s on android too. 
1 Like
1 Like
I guess the problem is the Japanese-in-Japanese grammatical system is just ridiculously hard to teach to people who don’t speak Japanese. I mean just look at Japanese verb conjugation - Wikipedia. I feel like I’m about ready for that page now, but I wasn’t three months ago.
I say bring on the technical terms, just have good tooltips and maybe a way to add the terms as vocab cards.
2 Likes
Agree on all counts!!
I like the idea you described, and I also think BunPro is great! So much so, that everyone who’s serious about learning Japanese should get a lifetime subscription, especially if they’re beginners. Not only is BunPro being constantly improved, but Japanese is something that takes years to master, so that money you spent for the lifetime sub is totally worth it.
1 Like
Thanks! I was being too clever and searching for the name in Japanese…
1 Like
I’ve got lifetime subscriptions to WaniKani, BunPro and Drops. (Drops more so because it has a whole ton of languages and is super easy to practice vocab with.)
@thomas1985 @Jose7822 @michellespeering It’s worth giving ImiWa? a look. (But I think it’s only for iOS.)
It is a Japanese/English dictionary and you can also see conjugations for every verb, both polite and casual. Very handy and doesn’t require an internet connection. One of my favorite things is that when you look up kanji it’s got a section for “similar kanji”. It has a bunch of other functionality to aid learning as well.
2 Likes
Same, I have a lifetime sub here and Wanikani. However, I’ve never heard of Drops. How does it compare to Memrise, Anki and other vocabulary learning tools?
I found Memrise to be the most enjoyable to learn words out of all the ones I’ve tried, with the huge exception that you need to learn the hiragana and kanji versions of each word separately, which makes the process of learning twice as long. Hopefully Drops has a fun system that incorporates the option to toggle furigana on/off.
The vocabulary decks in BunPro are also good, but I would like to have options of choosing not just the JLPT level, but also by frequency or most used vocabulary, rather than learning esoteric words that mean nothing to me (I guess that’s the beauty of making your own Anki decks).
Also, never heard of the 意味は app. Will check it out. Thanks!!
Drops uses pictures to teach the vocabulary so if you’re a visual learner I think it can be really helpful. You can try it for free. It’s broken up into short, thematic modules like colors, food, and like that and you can pick whatever module you want, whenever you want. There are some interesting ones like “board games” or “racing” or “soccer”. Some of them are just words, and some also have set sentences. There’s sometimes a bit of overlap where one word shows up in more than one module, and I don’t know why they treat them as separate words. You get access to ALL languages they have for the subscription. (I got my lifetime sub on sale for like $70 or something.)
You can either use Romaji always on, Romaji adaptive, Furigana Always on, Furigana Adaptive, or Furigana always off. You can also do kana only. (Dunno what they mean by adaptive and I think they added this since the last time I looked at the setting.) I’d initially set everything to kanji before I started WaniKani in hopes to at least learn how to recognize kanji for words I knew. It worked. Somewhat. There’s also an option to hear each word spoken.
To be honest I prefer the vocabulary study on BunPro and WaniKani. I just use Drops as a kind of cross training. And in all cases, I like that someone else has curated the learning path for me. The kind of learning I do where I curate on my own is like learning song lyrics or playing a video game in Japanese.
1 Like
I’m giving Drops a trial, but it seems way too easy even when I told it that I knew Japanese well. It’s good to hear that there are options for Kanji and hurigana, because it’s giving everything in Kana right now. I’ll keep using it, but so far it doesn’t look like it’s challenging enough (or perhaps I haven’t found the harder modules?).
I don’t know what it means in Drops that you’re an “advanced learner”. To find the kana settings, go to “Profile” at the bottom, then click the gear icon in the upper right. The settings you’re looking for are under “Transcription Aid” and “Choose Writing Style”.
I don’t find it especially challenging and it’s certainly not a replacement for any of the other tools we use. I just use it to drill, learn words I don’t know and may not have thought to learn, or to low-key practice reading a bit.
Some of the modules can be situationally useful, like Workplace talk, COVID talk, or Science and Wisdom. One thing I do like is that they keep adding content that’s relevant and useful in day-to-day interactions. It’s a little bit like an interactive phrasebook, and definitely isn’t enough by itself. I think it’s more aimed at casual learners or folks who want to learn a few specific things very quickly. It sticks to one thing—pictorial vocabulary—and does it well. (Also the draw here is that it contains multiple languages, so I can also work on French and don’t have to get a whole new app. And I already know the images used, so in a way it builds on itself the more you use it.)
1 Like
I would also like to see more example sentences that COMPARE similar grammar points to see how the sentences change.
Recently I just went over おきに and the example sentences that compared it to ごとに by just switching out the grammar point (leaving the rest of the sentence the same) made it really easy to understand what the difference was.
Also in general I would love to have more reading practice in the reading practice section (although that is a bit off topic).
4 Likes
I enjoy the reading practice section too so I agree with you, although part of me also thinks that bunpro should really focus on grammar first and foremost. There’s plenty of room for improvement as this thread shows!
There are many options for graded readers and vocabulary study out there (many of which do it better than bunpro IMO), I don’t think bunpro would necessarily benefit from becoming an all-in-1 resource, especially since in my experience with other websites and apps that means doing nothing particularly well.
For instance I tried the new bunpro vocabulary implementation, found it pretty clunky and gave up on it after a few days. There are dozens of mature Japanese vocab SRS tools out there with high quality decks, some completely free, so why bother?
That being said I understand that it makes for good marketing…
4 Likes
Love this! Thank you so much for seeking this kind of community/user feedback. This is what makes for a great product, and I’m once again very impressed with BunPro Team’s initiative in this direction.
As for the main poll question:
I personally prefer to have the Japanese technical terms in the writeups (somewhere anyway), as I am personally very interested in learning how native-speaking Japanese people experience and understand grammar (and language in general) – to be honest, I’m the same way with my native English – but I completely understand that not everyone has the same kind of interest in it that I do.
So, while I personally answered Yes (since I don’t personally desire a toggle), I can completely understand why others might want the option.
With that said, there are possibly some ways that could be a kind of ‘compromise’ position, or perhaps even a ‘best of both worlds’ position (maybe?). Here are just some quick thoughts off the top of my head (haven’t read anything in the thread yet, nor really any of the previous posts on the topic):
- Could default to explanations using primarily the popular/‘accepted’ English-equivalent words (like ‘intransitive verb’ for example), with the more-correct Japanese words and their more-literal or more-accurate English equivalents (like ‘self-move verb’ for example) set off from the main text. Perhaps:
- Simply by using parentheses (like this), or
- Using an HTML element, attribute, or CSS styling of some kind to have it pop up on hover, or expand when an icon is clicked, or whatever, or
- Having an ‘info-box’ set off to the side, with the more-accurate wordings. Like is often seen in the < Whatever > For Dummies books or similar.
Well, as I was writing this up, I ended up doing a quick search for what HTML elements could be used for this purpose. (I found, for example, the < dfn > tag for definitions, with optional title attribute for mouseover…) But as I was perusing the MDN site and their HTML Reference documentation, I realized: “Hey, wait a minute! Wouldn’t it be great if all the different technical terms that BunPro wants to use were also documented in a reference site similar to how this MDN site is providing reference documentation for HTML?!”
And, I think this is my ultimate suggestion! Whatever the BP team decides for the user-interface side of things, regardless of how they figure that out, it would still be great if: Whenever they use a term – in particular the Japanese terms, but also even the popular/‘accepted’ English terms – they provide a simple way to access reference information about that term.
The simplest thing would be to use a hyperlink to a dedicated section of the site, like how many sites have Help or FAQ sections, and jump to the ‘definition’ of that particular term. If the definition only needs to be short, could be one definition in a page of definitions, like a glossary. If more information about the term is available and useful, then that term can have its own page (even if relatively short) for collecting all the information about the term that BP wants its users to know & have available to learn from.
For example, you could have a page about 自動詞 and how it is often translated as ‘intransitive verb’, but how that translation is only approximate, how there are many ‘exceptions’ or situations where ‘intransitive’ doesn’t quite fit, and how the literal meaning is closer to ‘self-move verb’. And perhaps links to external resources (or even textbook page references, like in many grammar point pages), such as to Cure Dolly’s video where she breaks this issue down very well (IMHO).
Alternatively, could have a more-fancy interface to this kind of reference documentation, such as how you already have the modal pop-up screen for reading about another grammar point while staying on the current grammar point’s page.
But that might be more work. In terms of getting something like this off-the-ground, simpler (individual pages, even if small/sparse initially) might be better, to start with, and also perhaps for SEO searchability, etc.
Note: I realize that this functionality already basically exists with the current pages assigned to each grammar point. The difference here is that these reference pages would not be something that you would add as a Lesson/Review. They would be for more general grammar topics and grammar-related terminology. [They could perhaps also be candidates for including as Vocab items, tho! 
]
1 Like