Suggestion: Context Sentences

Bunpro
#1

A lot of japanese grammar requires context. You need to know the context so that you know which grammar point to use.

Unfortunately bunpro asks for the context like this:

test3

This is no better than an anki card that says:

Q: What is the subject marker?
A: が

I’m not really getting an intuitive sense of the grammar, but rather just associating english definitions to grammar points.

My suggestion is this: Instead of just a single sentence with a single blank line, there will be 2 sentences. The first sentence will indicate the context. The second one will be the sentence with the blank line. For example:

Context Sentence:
今日は泳ぎますか?
Will you swim today?

Answer Sentence
私は泳ぎません。友達＿＿泳ぎます。

Since in the context sentence 友達 is not mentioned, it is new information, so you use が. It doesn’t have to say “subject marker”.

Context: Why are you late?
Answer: 渋滞に巻き込まれた__
I got caught in traffic.

The context tells you that the answer is an explanation (because you’re explaining why you’re late). No need explicitly state that fact.

I think this will make it easier to obtain an intuitive sense of the grammar than just stating the english definitions.

12 Likes
#2

I think what you suggest is harder than you think (at least for は and が). Because I would probably have answered は here because は works with contrast. So you are saying “I will not swim. My friend will swim.” And as far as I’ve learnt that would mean the は particle for both sentences because of contrast.

5 Likes
#3

I agree. This is probably by far the biggest flaw in Bunpro’s approach right now.

I’m pretty sure that it’s appropriate to use が here for the exact reason @omegazion said. You mark new information with が. Here’s an interesting explanation on stack exchange.

https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/57219/about-は-particle-and-the-contrast-it-implies

8 Likes
#4

I definitely understand where you’re coming from and I agree to an extent, but in the example you used, you could answer は, が, なら and so forth.
I agree that I’m often just associating grammar points with definitions but I think it would be very hard to implement something like that. Your best bet is to use the grammar points in real life conversations, post on HelloTalk etc. so you can have your sentences corrected. I see BunPro as my foundation for learning grammar points but context comes later when you use the points on conversations.

7 Likes
#5

@matt_in_mito
@seanblue
@MissDagger

I really, really like the idea. :+1:

4 Likes
#6

I agree with @matt_in_mito. I wouldn’t expect SRS to fully explain the nuances here or many other points. This is why I keep grammar dictionaries handy (or ask Japanese teachers) to explain this in greater depth along with reading/writing repetition. I don’t know how BunPro would be expected to go into depth such as this which is such an extensive topic which appears benign at first.

が can sound suggestive too in this context I think. で could also be used to sound like “This should be ok”. Generally, は is overused by foreigners but not ungrammatical. I got snagged for doing this which is really an English trait for constantly marking the topic and being to literal with translations.

1 Like
#7

It sounds like you have the right understanding of は vs. が, but unfortunately it can’t be applied quite that rigorously to sentences that exist outside of larger contexts. “Aは[X], Bは[Y]” is a super-common pattern that takes full advantage of the contrastive property that は possesses: “A will do this thing; B will do that thing” or, “A will do that; B will not do that.”

To say that we can’t use は on the 友達 here is like saying, “A man threw the ball” is incorrect and should instead say, “A man threw a ball” because I haven’t mentioned a ball in my comment yet. But… it’s not actually wrong. There is, however, still a nuance that there’s a certain ball we should already know of that’s being referred to, due to my use of the word “the” instead of “a.”

Likewise, 私は泳ぎません。友達は泳ぎます。 isn’t wrong (in fact, it’s probably the most natural particle to use here). But, it does impart a feeling that we either know this 友達 already, or (more likely in this particular scenario) we are using 友達 in a general sense (non-specifically; possibly plural) which doesn’t require the reader/listener to know exactly who’s being talked about, and therefore allows us to use は without a problem.

 

EDIT: Just pumping up my number of edits on this comment :muscle:

6 Likes
#8

Some things cannot be learned intuitively except for out in the wild (books, tv, native speech, etc). While this would be great for some things, for the most part bunpro does what it should, jog your memory of what grammar means when you see it in real life and not just reviews.

3 Likes
#9

I still think something needs to be changed. As it is, the English hints often completely give away the answer so that you don’t actually need to understand the grammar.

9 Likes
#10

Yes, I’m just going to +1 this again because I agree and haven’t had a totally convincing feeling to throw money down on this system because I feel like I’m only going to memorize a couple of sentence patterns only and not a real grasp of what a particular particle is used for and why.

edit: I did however just discover that there are links in the grammar points that direct you to free resources for further explanations.

3 Likes
#11

Hey and welcome on the forums :smiley:

There are already some grammar points that put context to use, for example わけではない
We really love the idea of putting more context, and we are putting effort to use context more often :+1:

Cheers!

#12

@seanblue
@Asher
@Kai
@s1212z
@matt_in_mito
@MissDagger
@omegazion

So which grammar points do you want to see with more context? :ear:

#13

Good question. To be honest, sometimes I think the english translation is so far from what the actual sentence is saying that the nuance of which grammar point we are supposed to use gets lost.

I would say alot of this problem would be solved by having more literal translations. Sure it may sound a little stilted, but we arent here to learn english after all.

For example there are different ways to say ‘whether’ A or B, C.

Perhaps a translation along the lines of ‘whether you run, whether you walk, you will still get there in the end’ would be better than something that sounds more natural in english. This type of translation would hint at the ‘にしても’ translation just by sentence flow.

2 Likes
#14

Or, two translations, with a menu toggle. Instead of a setting to turn English on/off, we could have off/Natural English/Literal Translation.

12 Likes
#15

@monkeytunes I actually really like that idea.

#16

This is a great idea. I sometimes find that the clunky way BP decides to translate certain grammar points and then seeing each example sentence forced into that pattern actually makes it very confusing to me.

#17

@omegazion, @seanblue, @Kai, @Moogle, @Asher, @MissDagger, @Anthropos888

We are thinking about incorporating the orange text that often appears under your review questions into the hint cycle (button to the left of the input field/pressing space). The information displayed in the orange text often expands on the grammar point’s nuance. Would you like to see this information by itself, as the first hint in the cycle, paired with just the English translation of the grammar point (“minimal”), or paired with the full English translation? Let us know your thoughts. Cheers!

1 Like
#18

For me, most important is that you hide the orange hint when users set the “review english” setting to “hide”. I can tell the right in answer for most review sentences by just looking at the orange hint and there’s no way to hide it. So please hide it from the beginning if the setting is “hide”.
Furthermore, for me it would make sense to show both the normal and the orange hint together when clicking/toggling to “hint”. Maybe it’s a bit annoying when users need to click too often to show the yellow first and then the orange hint after a second click.

3 Likes
#19

I would cycle it separately. I usually show the English and I’d still like to hide those nuance hints. So maybe a show/hide nuance button that gets its own keyboard shortcut and setting?

1 Like
#20

There are currently 3 choices to cycle between; I think the best change would be to add a 4th that simply shows absolutely no hint at all:

  1. Nothing
  2. Grammar Point
  3. Grammar Point + Answer’s Translation
  4. Grammar Point + Complete Translation

Also, that one teal font color that’s common in the N3/N2 reviews still breaks hint cycling… (It gets stuck on the full translation)

2 Likes