Recalling vs recognising

Bunpro
#1

Hi all

I couldn’t find a discussion going on about this so I just wanted to ask about peoples’ opinions on recalling vs recognising.
I sometimes feel that when using bunpro I’m able to recognise Japanese words so easily but then I’m unable to recall them in a conversation later in the day.
I think this is because of recognising the words from Japanese to English rather than the other way around. Just that make sense?

Is there a way to flip the cards so that I have to recall the Japanese rather than the English? Does anyone else feel this?
Thanks
Emily

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#2

I dont think there is a way to do this in Bunpro but I use Kaniwani to do a reverse of my Wanikani cards IE get the English prompt and have to input the Kanji/kana. There is also kamesame which does the same as Kaniwani but also has a list of most common vocab which you could do seperately to Bunpro and Wanikani.
Sorry if this isn’t helpful but I thought I should share :slight_smile:

#3

Not sure if I understood correctly, but when you choose the “fill-in” question type, you are asked to recall the Japanese word but in context (within a sentence) instead of a simple “front and back” type of card.

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This is what you would get with all the hints on:

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#4

The importance of recall.

So I use an app called kitsun for learning vocab. I’ve a couple of decks on there. One is a pre-made deck “10k kitsun optimized” and another is my own deck for words I come across that are not on the 10k deck.

The pre-made one has

  • Show you Kanji - > Give me the english meaning
  • Show you the Kanji → Give me the Hiragana reading
  • Give you Japanese audio → Give me the English
  • Show you the English → give me the hiragana

I just used the default template for my deck and that gives you card of the 1st 2 types above
I’ve been doing this way for over a year.

Here’s the thing, during conversation my recall for words from my deck was significantly worse.

One day I realized it’s probably because for the now seemingly obvious thing; during a conversation my English thinking brain reaches for a English word and then wants to translate it into Japanese (until such time that I’ve used this word a lot and then my brain doesn’t need to think it in English) - words that I’ve not practiced English → Japanese, this is a lot harder. (So I’ve added this layout to my deck too)

Okay, so making more relevant.
No BP, doesn’t have this feature but … but there are vocab apps/decks out there that do (might even be the case that the BP vocab one does, don’t use it sorry).

So, a strategy of mine for BP grammar I really struggle to remember is to add the word to my vocab deck. If you have the English → Japanese setting, then this will help you recall it during conversation. In time, in time, it’s not some silver bullet!

hope this helps.

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