Update - N5/N4 Vocab Alternate Answers. July/02/23

[Keaka]

Hello everyone!

Today I’m happy to announce the addition of many alternate answers for the N5 and N4 vocabulary study questions!

---

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been going through some data which includes many of the answers that users have attempted and picked out those that should be providing a hint, rather than being marked wrong.

Although not exhaustive, this should provide everyone with a more directed nudge towards the correct answer for a study question when they were close. Some examples are:

In a study question like this one for the vocabulary ダンス, many users guessed the word 踊り (おどり). Before, this would be marked incorrect, but now it will instead prompt a hint that will helpfully nudge the user towards the word ダンス instead.

In this study question we noticed that many users would use the more polite word お酒 (おさけ), so now it will prompt the user to use the less polite version of the word dropping the honorific お.

Unlike grammar, these hints are not designed to show which word is more natural, just which word is being asked for as a part of the SRS. It is possible that there may be many natural word choices on a sentence by sentence basis.

---

In addition to adding alternate answers, we’ve also added the unconjugated version of most verbs to be accepted answers as well! This means that for a question that uses a conjugated version of a verb, you can now enter either the conjugated or unconjugated form. For example:

In this study question, because the てくれました is already included, the correct response would have been ほめ. With this update you can now enter either ほめ or ほめる. Although ほめる would not be grammatically correct in this sentece, being that vocabulary practice is more about the word than the grammar, we feel that the full word should always be accepted.

---

Ah, right!

In case you were wondering who the heck I am, I’m Keaka, and I’ve been a content lead on the sly since December of last year. A few of you may know me from answering lots of feedback that gets directed internally, or if you’ve taken a look at the About Us page on Bunpro.

I hope you all enjoy the update and look forward to more of them in the future! I will be continuing this work for N3, in addition to working on a few other projects. Thank you all for your support as always!

[I-k-d]

Ahh this is great!! I feel like I might be able to use cloze now with this update!

[bunnypro]

I totally 100% get what you are saying!

However, I want to learn both vocab and grammar at the same time, because after all when using the language “in real life”, it’s not like you can really separate the two.
It’s not like someone says, “well done, you used the right verb but in totally the wrong form, but this was only a vocabulary interaction, so that’s ok!” or “well done, you used totally the wrong verb but in the correct grammatical form, and this was a grammar interaction, so you 100% got it!”

So I would prefer if I can at least get a “right verb, but please conjugate it!” hint in those cases.

Sorry to be a spanner in the works

[wct]

This is awesome, @Keaka -san!

When it comes to what makes BunPro so great, a lot of it comes down to efforts like these to streamline and polish the customer’s/user’s experience, so that it flows more smoothly and with fewer distractions and disappointments. IMHO.

My own BunPro experience has improved in so many ways since I signed up, and in the last few weeks or so I have definitely noticed the improvements you’ve made to Vocab!

Thanks so much for your hard work!

(And a belated “Welcome! ” to you as well! )

[Wippo]

Great Update again! Love you hardworking folks at bunpro. <3

So, slightly unrelated question, but how do I opt in to the vocabulary sentences rather than just the words?
I am sure it was written somewhere, but I can’t find it.

[opx]

Not completely related, and I’m sure this has been asked before, but: Do you plan on providing sound for the vocabulary? Because using Bunpro for vocabulary could be an awesome option - however, without pronounciation, it’s a no-go for me. Even having some auto-generated pronounciation like the one jpdb.io uses would be better than having no sound at all.

[Markapi_Suh]

Cool update! Thank you!!!

[Gabrielkarrer]

nice

[I-k-d]

You have to find the deck and go into its settings then change it from manual to cloze, or you can do it for individual words at the bottom of the words info pages.

[davebp]

Would it be possible to something similar for grammar, please.

As an example, bunpro is inconsistent about whether, when the required grammar precedes a sentence ending か, the か is included in the prompt, or the user is expected to add it.

Obviously if it is there in the prompt, then the user should notice and not add it again. But I do that time and again, and I think it is ungenerous of bunpro not to point it out, rather than simply mark the question wrong. Bunpro forgives, or reprompts, much more egregious errors, for sure.

— Dave

[Wippo]

Thanks a bunch!

[HotAirGun]

Thank you for the update!
If I happen to meet some valid but still not added alternate answer, should I write about it via the feedback form or just hit Enter to sent some internal statistics?
Now the reaction is kinda inconsistent. While Chihiro_0428 adds hints for alternate answers I stumbled upon, Carcious doesn’t and recommends to add my own alternate answers by clicking on the ‘Add synonym’ button. But I’m not sure if I’m right in every particular case if I just will add everything as a synonym. At the same time hitting upon a possible valid answer marked red again and again is frustrating.

[Asher]

@HotAirGun You’re definitely welcome to do either, as the staff member that answers the feedback will not always be the same. Due to the huge load of feedback we get on a day to day basis, we usually try to prioritize things based on when and how often they come through, also what we are individually working on at any point in time.

For example, we get things ranging from bugs, to display issues, to typos, to alternative answer suggestions, to subscription enquiries, and even to people asking for general advice about learning Japanese.

Naturally, we handle things that can be handled the quickest first (typo’s etc), redirect others for things that require a specific skill (bugs etc), and then move on to the more time consuming ones, as they all require individual reading, and then reading of every sentence in that vocab/grammar point. It’s unfortuantely very rarely the case of applying one change to every sentence, as what is right in one sentence may be wrong within another, despite being the same structure/vocab.

We do have statistics on user added synonyms, and will periodically go through and update the words that are accepted based on this. We also have data of attempted answers, so are able to see what people are trying, even if they don’t add it as a synonym. If an individual staff member adds a synonym on the spot for a user, it is possibly due to the feedback on that particular day being a bit less than usual. We also try our best to update grammar synonyms on the spot as well, as grammar is our core product. When we periodically go through and update the words that are accepted, it will be up to whoever does that check to decide whether it is/is not acceptable in that instance. We do regret that we cannot answer all questions related to alternatives, but do try to do as much as we can with the time we have.

[HotAirGun]

Thank you for the answer!
So maybe create a dedicate forum topic for alternative answers suggestion? It will decrease feedback load, and Bunpro team could answer to these suggestion in a batch in one message like once a week.

[wct]

Thanks @Asher for this ‘insider’s view’ answer about how things tend to work in the BP team’s handling of feedback. I really appreciate this kind of transparency. Not only does it give me/us some insight into how you guys operate, but it also helps me/us to understand how we can provide better quality feedback, and to manage our expectations (for example, with regards to how long it might take for a response, depending on how busy things might be). Cheers!

[Asher]

@HotAirGun We could definitely create a forum topic, but unless everyone was using it, it would just create one extra additional stream of feedback that needs answering. Assuming there was a batch of words/suggestions, it would still require the person that answered it to check each and every individual sentence for each and every suggestion, which would mean that that person could potentially have a whole day taken up with forum things in addition to the internal feedback which they would still need to do.

This is more of an integration problem than anything. The ideal solution would be a mode of feedback submission where users can see what other users have submitted before they submit their own internal feedback. Or some kind of ‘discuss’ type comment history that is directly tied to the feedback form for any particular vocab/grammar. I guess it would basically just be a public feedback history that people could read through before they submit their own. I don’t know if such a system is possible, but logistically it would be the only option I can think of that would actually greatly improve the feedback system as a whole.