Resetting N-Levels

Bunpro
#15

I joined Bunpro back in 2019 when it still didn’t have a ton of content yet. Life happened, and I ended up not using the site again until 2022. During that time, the grammar explanations had been updated, and more example sentences had been added. It made sense for me at the time to reset my progress so that I could benefit from the more in-depth explanations and example sentences.

Likewise, I’m currently working my way through some of the vocab decks. I’ve sporadically added a bunch of words from N1, N2, and the A/E decks, but I am planning on resetting these decks once the example sentence translations and Cloze options are released.

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#16

I’m considering once I reached N3 or N2. To keep revise it again.

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#17

I like this like a prestige system.

I could imagine something where it is N5 grammar but N1 vocab and contexts. You’re welcome for even more work.

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#18

As I’ve suggested on these forums before, I think revisiting “basic” topics but from the perspective of someone who is already an intermediate or an advanced learner would be extremely interesting. As proven by the frequent discussions in this forum and all over the Internet, things like the usage and nature of particles, different types of words, slang, etc etc can cause a lot of confusion and/or is a worthy subject of considered discussion due to varying perspectives. I’d love to read some articles or lessons on the nature of various “basic” topics (which may be better considered as fundamental and therefore actually extremely deep) aimed at intermediate or advanced learners. Imabi attempts something kind of like that but it is extremely dry and riddled with typos so it is relatively low down on my list of English references for Japanese grammar.

However… I can’t imagine many people would use or read those kind of articles or lessons so I’m not sure it would be the best allocation of the Bunpro team’s time, financially speaking. I do think some kind of blog or YouTube channel that discusses these things (assuming it has a high level of production quality) could do wonders for Bunpro marketing. Equally, a basic N5 video series would probably gain a lot of clicks and it is pretty easy to put a call to action at the end of each video pointing viewers to the site. Tofugu manages to push people towards Wanikani fairly well, it seems, so even a blog would presumably have some effect. Bunpro doesn’t have to copy Tofugu but both Tofugu/Wanikani and recently Marumori seems to gather a lot of attention from people who are yet to even learn kana I think purely because of the pretty pictures. Again, something worth thinking about.

Anyway, that got really off topic…

On the topic itself, I reset once around the end of N3. It was the right decision for me probably although I would strongly suggest people don’t reset if possible and just add things more slowly. I think some learning meta where students are encouraged to read ahead, even by a whole N-level, but only add things they have learnt a while ago would keep the SRS manageable and keep a good feeling of progress (assuming they’re using the language in some way). The problem is basically every beginner believes they’re the exception and will ignore that kind of advice, or so it seems online.

6 Likes
#19

Apologies for keeping this off topic, but I’d love to see this happen. BunPro can distinguish themselves from other YouTube channels by focusing on the different nuances between similar grammar points. Most channels address grammar points separately. Also, as you said, it would bring more people to the website.

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#20

I’ve been here a year and have covered N5 through N3 grammar. I have reset three times. I’m used to never-ending reviews from anki and don’t find having hundreds in a given day too problematic. That said, if I can get away with not resetting again I’ll gladly take that route.

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#21

I did the 1 month free trail, then came back to 100 reviews 3 years later when I bought an subscription. I didn’t refresh because
100 reviews aren’t too many
They were all n5 that I remembered
I kept studing, just not in bunpro.

While it wasn’t a problem for me, I could see your account automaticlly getting put on vacation mode when your subscription lapes. When my subscription expires in 10 more months, I’ll probably reset any n3-n1 grammer.

2 Likes
#22

I’ve resetted N5 at least twice, because japanese has a very low priority in my life so it’s the first thing I drop for many months when I’m busy otherwise. When I get back I like to refresh on all items instead of assuming I will just have remembered everything.

This time though it was really too easy. I added all N5 items in like a week or so and now that they’re all in Seasoned and Expert I feel like I’ve refreshed them enough. So much so that I’m considering setting them as ‘mastered’ manually.

I’d certainly appreciate any of the speedrun / rerun / remort functions mentioned so far. Or something like KameSame’s placement test:

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#23

Maybe some sort of incentive for resetting would be nice. Similar to a prestige system in a game where people reset their rank, but get a new badge or title for example.

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#24

I don’t feel like encouraging resets like that is a good idea. It’s not like everyone needs to reset, and in turn could cause people to become discuraged.

As for me resetting, yah I did once, back when I first finished n5, i still didn’t really understand anything so i fully reset it and started again. te second time around I feel I understand it far better.

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#25

That seems like it’d be really nice to have for vocab!

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#26

Yeah, I’m also going to support not encouraging resets. Enough people already have a problem of going over material they already know because it feels more comfortable (I know I certainly do) that encouraging it could actually hamper progress.

But a remort/etc. function would definitely be helpful, just as long as there are no reward incentives to actually use it. It’s better to reward people for actually learning a grammar point thoroughly the first time round IMO.

7 Likes
#27

Oh yeah, indeed! Come to think of it, I’d even say the priority to implement something like this for vocab is much higher.

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#28

Just posting agreeing with not encouraging resets. As was mentioned, people should be rewarded for properly studying grammar points, not for resetting.

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#29

I’ve reset at least a dozen or so grammar points over that last couple of years. Reset a couple more after I got back from my last Japan trip.

I’m like, yeah the program tells me it mastered that, but real world application tells me otherwise.

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#30

Speaking of preventing resets, a function that returns 50 (for example) of the vocabulary example sentences that include a given grammar point so you can read through them / make them ghosts / etc., or let you work through them in some way (it’s late I haven’t thought this through well) would be seriously welcome.

Sometimes there are grammar edge cases within a point where there are only 1-2 example sentences in the grammar SRS and I find that really undermines how confident I feel with it.

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#31

I chose I never even considered it, but it would be more accurate to say that I’ve never needed it, and I hope I never do, but it may be useful in some situations, like after taking a long break.

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#32

I have reset individual JLPT levels multiple times.
Don’t think I’ve ever reset N5 though :thinking:

It’s often when I haven’t got many Reviews coming through, and I’m trying to pick up studying Japanese again.

Resetting singular Grammar Points that I feel I need to study doesn’t really work, because then they trickle through slowly, and I can guess what the answers are because I know I’ve reset them recently.

4 Likes
#33

I fall into a different category:
“I have thought about resetting but haven’t done so because I just want to keep going and don’t want to lose my progress.”

I have briefly considered it and it doesn’t seem pointless to do it - I can see the point of doing it.
As far as I know, despite never having tried, there is nothing technically stopping me from doing it.
But it just doesn’t seem like the kind of thing I want to do right now and I’d rather keep going with progressing from where I am.

1 Like
#34

I only reset once, when I finished N4, the explanations were added a while later and I wanted to read them so I just did it all again.

But I think this would be a nice feature. There are certain items I feel I keep failing on previous levels, but I’m kind of too lazy to make a note of each one to reset them individually :sweat_smile:
Or to be able to sort grammar points by accuracy so its easier to decide which ones to reset (or cram).

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