Starting Bunpro as an advanced learner

Bunpro
#1

Hello random people reading this,

So my friend just recommended me this website and it looks pretty interesting so I want to give it a shot but I also want to make sure I’m using my time effectively. I would label myself as an “advanced” learner. I don’t want to brag but just to give some context for why I’m posting this, I passed N2 in 2019, and N1 last year (woohoo!).

That being said, I still want to go back and take another look at a lot of the N3, N2, and N1 grammar, especially N1. And as much as I love reviewing, I really don’t want to grind out the N5 and N4 grammar. Are there any shortcuts I can do to speed up the process?

Although part of me wonders if I should just bite the bullet and go through it all. I’m living in Japan now and there’ll be times where someone corrects my Japanese and I realize I’ve been saying the wrong thing for 6 years lol

EDIT: I continued exploring the website and now I realize it’s not like Wanikani. I can literally start from N1 if I want to. So the real question is, should advanced learners start from the beginning or should they go straight to the tough stuff?

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#2

I would start from turning ghost off for a while and adding like 10-20 grammar points (or more if they are very easy to you) until you start feeling that reviews are taking too much time. After that you can slow down with new grammar point, and after while turn ghost on, and use BunPro as everybody else.

That looks like most time effective way if you don’t want to spend a year redoing simple grammar.

6 Likes
#3

im in a similar position, been in japan for almost 10 years and studied in college but still find myself in intermediate hell/limbo
I’m also using wanikani and have the same condurum. i finally decided to bite the bullet and let the system do its thing. I’ve been having great fun and noticeable improvements since. Even with N5 I am learning the better nuances between all the locations ar kore sore kono koko soko asoko asoimmablowmybrainsout
trust the system

5 Likes
#4

lmao yeah maybe we’re in the same boat

I guess I’ll join you in the grind. It’ll take a while but at least my Japanese will be しっかりしてる

2 Likes
#5

Ah! Keep in mind after first review grammar point will reappear after 4h so it is most beneficial and fast to do reviews at least twice a day. It will help you send easy one far in the future quicker and you will have less chance to forget the ones you have some problems with.

4 Likes
#6

I went through a lesson a day starting from N4 and read/listened to all the example sentences. If there were any sentences that I felt I didn’t understand instinctually with little to no effort then I added the grammar point to my reviews. (there is a button on each grammar page to manually add to your reviews). I also added a couple that I knew I sometimes messed up conjugating. I did end up with some easy reviews, but now I’m more confident that I know those grammar points forwards and backwards.

There are 10 lessons in a level so 10 days to get through each one. Once you get to the ones you would like to start reviewing more thoroughly you can slow down and look at the readings. Just watch that you aren’t adding too many points at once. The reviews can pile up quick and become a slog even if they’re easy grammar points.

I second reducing ghosts. I have them set on ‘minimal’

4 Likes
#7

Just go through it all again. I finished pretty much everything then decided to do it all again. Found I was understanding stuff I thought I already knew really well the second time around.

Apart from that, just read, out loud. Studies into almost all forms of language aquisition show that those who can read fast, generally are far… Far better speakers as well.

9 Likes
#8

Go to the grammar point list, choose the ones you don’t like and select the last level (I know this). They will not appear again.

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#9

I’ve never taken the JLPT, but I minored in Japanese in college. I think it’s in your best interests to go over it all again. Bunpro has been great for explaining grammatical points that I used to take at face value. Plus the sentences build on one another by design, so the example sentences will be much, much clearer if you start from the basics. I’ve known the basics for literally more than half my life and it still helped me to review them here.

3 Likes
#10

I’ve started using bunpro about half a year ago. At that point I’ve passed N2 in summer 2019 and I had good grasp of grammar up to N2.

I see drastic improvement in my writing skills (I’m not living in Japan but I have to write essays on University). Also speaking becomes more natural, because before using bunpro I didn’t use a lot of grammar that I known passively.
I noticed changed in my reading skill but i don’t think it’s significant change (I also read 20> books in Japanese, from light novels to autobiographic, so reading always was my strong point).

So I would recommend start from N5 even if you know all of them.

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#11

I lived in Japan for several years many moons ago. While I speak Japanese ok, I haven’t formally studied Japanese since high school and I’ve always been bad at grammar (In English, Japanese and my other native language)… so I ended up just starting from N1. most of the material is intuitive, but I clearly have been saying some things wrong over the years. lol

I guess since you’re currently in Japan maybe the n5 may be too easy. I’d be curious to hear what your experience will be with it in the future.

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#12

3言語は何かな*(^o^)/*

#14

ノルウェー語です。

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#15

If you passed N1, I would not recommend going through N5 – that’s just painful. There’s nothing that says you can’t just start in the middle. I started with N3, went back to review N4, and now I’m halfway through N2.

If you really want to have some review of N5, you could just use the Cram feature to quiz yourself on chunks of N5 at a time.

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#16

@Ca1ves

Hey and welcome on the community forums :blush::blush:

You can start wherever you want, for example, you can start from N5 and mark grammar points you don’t want to review as “learned”, so you won’t be overwhelmed with something you don’t want to review anyway.

Though it’s very satisfying to complete the whole thing, just for that satisfaction’s sake. :blush:

Just one thing, don’t go too fast because you might get overwhelmed with reviews which can get annoying and disheartening.

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