Do you live in Japan? I see this word literally daily when walking about (not that you need to be able to read it). I still agree with the point of this thread though that this word likely doesn’t belong in the N5 deck.
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Maybe it is a useful word to know then I’ll keep an eye out hehe
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I am only using it right now for my Genki vocab but having said that it makes learning Genki 1 vocab easier so that’s a good thing
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I use Anki and Bunpro simultaneously for vocab. The fill in the blank feature that Anki lacks seems to help with retention rate significantly higher than Anki.
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This. I find that Bunpro’s fill in the blank helps me with general retention and more specifically “spelling.” Although, for recognizing the kanji specifically, Anki gives me better results. Since I’ve already got Anki set up anyway, it’s pretty trivial to run both.
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As someone who recently took (and passed) N5 and N4, I can attest that the “standard” vocab lists of roughly 700 N5 and N4 words does pretty much cover what’s on those tests. The extra words that Bunpro has in these decks, I think they’re (mostly) good and useful words to know…but they’re really not N5/N4 material.
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Honestly ive never even come across that word in english before either. so had to search it up what it meant in my own language and yea doesn’t seem like a word i would recommend at the beginner level at all.
but even the kanji themselves are far past n5 right?
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Just think of words as words. The moment you determine the difficulty of something, you inhibit your ability to progress.
If you are studying specifically for N5 then I understand, but in the long run you’ll need as many words as you can get to be able to effortlessly use the language.
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but even the kanji themselves are far past n5 right?
If you’re studying individual kanji and their readings in a typical order, most definitely yeah. But you’d technically encounter 眼 for the first time in Genki 1 with 眼鏡 (although, you most likely wouldn’t be expected to study it since that word is usually in kana). Words using the on-yomi would appear much less frequently, definitely N1+. Though I’d think a discerning person might be able to put together the meaning of 眼科 if they’d committed things like 眼鏡 and 科学 to memory before. Looks like Bunpro does teach the 眼鏡 and 科学 in it’s kanji form in N5, so I think that’s totally possible…
I wouldn’t say 科 is too far past N5, you’d be exposed to it in Genki I with both 教科書 and 科学 and it’s like grade 2 level kanji for Japanese kids, for a driven individual who is self-studying I don’t think it would be too far-fetched for them to have drilled that one early. That said, most of the words it’s in would technically be more N3-ish and beyond, I think.
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I 100% agree with this but I also see OP’s point. I can see how it might do a disservice to a lot of users to simply lump a bunch of seemingly random and situational words in what’s presented as simply a JLPT-focused vocab deck. The description of the decks should probably include something like: “includes all of the most common JLPT N◯ vocab, and words that learners might commonly find in daily life in Japan,” and then mark words that fall outside the scope of the JLPT so users can make a decision whether to focus their time on those. Or simply move those words to a different, broader vocab deck.
I heavily relied on the series of JLPT 単語 books by ask from N4 to N1. Those are JLPT-centric but contained a ton of situational words/phrases for daily life, outside the scope of the tests. It was always clear those words were highly situational, but they were all still related to the overarching themes of each chapter/section so they never felt out of place. I felt they were useful and chose to learn all of them, but I could see how you might choose to ignore them.
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This
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I usually do a mixture of adding words that I want to learn, and use in my day to day life, e.g. stuff from whatever manga I’m reading or something I keep wanting to say but don’t know how, as well as using the decks to study for the exams, the main problem is if I’m not going to use the word in my day to day life, and its also not even going to be in the N3 test in december. It’s a pain wasting my time stuck on the N5 deck when the words are N2 N1 level and I need to get through N4 and N3 too. Like why do I have to learn 眼科 before 濡れる? I’m going to use the latter far more than the first one so it makes sense to learn it first.
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I mean since I know what those kanji mean, it’s easy to understand. However it by no means is an N5 word. Like I rarely see that word in English itself, let alone in Japanese.
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It’s not that I can’t learn it or I don’t want to, I’m complaining about how the decks are marketed for the JLPT exams but the words are in the wrong place.
I know 科 and read it at school everyday, great kanji, great to learn relativly early, I think it’s N4 level maybe, and it is possible to learn 眼科, (I’ve already learnt it since I keep having to type it while complaining, in japanese anyway I don’t know/cant remember the english word though) It’s more of the fact that it’s clearly in the wrong deck.
Lots of N1 words aren’t hard and I know them, but I wouldn’t put them in the JLPT N5 deck just because they are easy if they aren’t going to show up in the JLPT N5 exam.
I got some questions wrong in the exam because I hadn’t learnt all the N5 words, because I was busy learning all the random words in the N5 deck.
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This was literally my first time in my life seeing this word in english 
is it different than an optometrist?(or however you spell it)
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The word is far more common in Japanese than in English. I am a native English speaker and use that word maybe once a year whilst seeing it maybe two or three times but I have used 眼科 multiple times in the one year I have lived in Japan and I see it basically daily. As I mentioned above in this thread, Japanese people see an opthalmologist to get their eyes tested and get their glasses.
This word, as with may others that people take issue with in beginner level materials, is more common than people realise if you are in Japan. The JLPT is aimed at people who are using Japanese in Japan and not at people who are learning how to read LNs or watch anime so there is very often a disconnect for English speaking learners online who are learning as a hobby or for otaku reasons.
Sidenote: It is different from an optometrist. An opthalmologist is a an actual medical doctor.
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Just because it’s common in Japan doesn’t mean it should be in a deck that is created solely for the point of passing a test, when it won’t be in that test.
I’m not learning japanese to watch anime, I live in Japan too and go to school here. But if you were teaching someone english, would you teach them how to say opthalmologist or optometrist after a year of learning english? Like it’s a useful word to know at a higher level.
I’m not like picking apart this specific word, I’m just saying that if they are marketing the decks to be JLPT, they should use the offical lists(if there are some i think there are), and stick to them, and those who are living in japan and are desperate to know how to say opthalmologist can go and search up that specific word and add it to their reviews.
Also thanks for explaining the difference haha, I see why I’ve never seen the word before, I don’t think we use medical doctors to check eyes in nz
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Completely agree with you. As I also said above in this thread, I agree with the main topic of this thread which is that this word doesn’t belong in the N5 deck. I was more generally trying to reply to people in this thread who are saying that because they don’t use or know this word in English it means it is also super rare in Japanese.
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Maybe they should make an anime about a 眼科者 so people learn the word hehe
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If I recall correctly from previous forum posts, the N5 vocabulary contains the vocabulary aimed at N5 plus the Genki I vocabulary. I believe this was because the book is so commonly used by students at that level.
As for myself, when I studied Genki I by myself, I completely ignored this word and several others similar ones … They came up naturally in conversations multiple years later.
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