について vocab in Bunpro N5 vocab deck? Also where best to learn N4/N5 vocabs?

Bunpro
#1

I didn’t feel like it was a N5 vocab when I came across it in the N5 deck, so I googled and it seems について is a N3 vocab/grammar?

I wonder if this is a mistake or について is really something I should know for N5?

I’m trying to pick a system to help me check if I know all the N5 (and soon N4) vocab, but Bunpro seems to have much larger N3/4 deck size than what I expected. So far looking at Bunpro and Kamesame, would like some suggestion.

Kamesame, I like that I can auto mark a vocab as learnt on the first time if I got it right in the lesson/review. But they use kanji and no furigana, and that makes me unable to recognise some easy N4/N5 words that would appear as only hiragana in the test, and not expecting me to know their kanji just yet.

Bunpro, I’m just worried that it might have more words than what I needed right now. Takes a few more steps to mark a new word that I already knew as learnt/burnt but that’s not too bad.

#2

I’m not going to say that all of the words found on the BunPro decks are must know, but most of them are very useful (especially because they also appear on the grammar questions during reviews). について is definitely a must know word, IMO. It means “about”. Yes, it is also an N3 grammar point, but if your goal is to learn Japanese then why worry about what level it belongs to? Just learn the words.

Even if your goal is to pass the JLPT N5, there are no cut and dry vocabulary/kanji/grammar decks because the tests are different every year, and you will see some words/grammar points from higher levels show up on the test anyway. It is inevitable since they need new content. All of these graded decks are just estimates. That’s why it’s a good idea to learn a little bit above the level you want to test on.

My suggestion is to learn as many words as you can, regardless of their level, as long as it’s not some rarely used word (at least for now, until you get to higher levels). And if you’re confortable reading hiragana and katakana, learning Kanji will help memorize words even faster since there are many words that sound the same but mean completely different things which, besides context, kanji will help differentiate. Also, once you learn the meaning and reading of Kanji you will be able to read and guess the meaning of Kanji you’ve never seen before. It’s not always the case since there are times when Kanji seems random, or have readings that are exceptions, but it’s an awesome feeling when you get the reading and/or the meaning right. Not to mention, you’ll need to know how to read Kanji anyway. It’s inevitable.

As for what to use, besides the BunPro decks (which I think are excellent), there are those from Anki, Memrise, etc. Both have tons of decks based on JLPT level, commonly used words, books, etc. As for learning Kanji, my favorite method is WaniKani. I personally don’t think there’s a better way, but that’s just me. As long as you’re learning them in the context of words in a sentence, rather than in a vacuum (which is the worst way to learn Kanji), you should be fine. I’m sure others will chime in with their preferred method to learn vocabulary. Check them all out and see what works for you. At the end of the day, it has to be something that works for you.

HTH!

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#3

I am not sure about について. But regarding vocab, I think Anki is the best (https://apps.ankiweb.net/). You can download anki decks that are good from JLPT Resources - Free Japanese Vocabulary lists and MP3 sound files . There are also word lists you can download and print if that helps you.

#4

I totally get what you’re saying in that vocab decks are all a bit random and probably none of them is sufficient for the huge range of vocab which could conceivably appear on the test.
Who knows what will come up on the test.
Even at N5 and N4 level, there have been really random vocab on the tests and sure, you can try and work them out from context, but it’s good to go into the test (and/or life) just knowing as much as possible.

If you don’t like the Bunpro vocab decks, perhaps try Torii SRS?

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#5

I haven’t taken any JLPT yet, but by my own estimation I’m overall around N5 level. Planning to take N4 exam this July.

That’s good to know.

You are right, I plan to learn everything eventually anyway. However for this moment since I aim to try N4 exam this July, I want to make sure I focus on the most likely vocab/grammar that would come up in the exam. Earlier I focused almost entirely on kanji and grammar, with random vocab knowledges from those kanji and some texts I read as practice.

I estimated I need to learn about a thousand more vocabs to be ready for N4. Or at least see those vocabs in passing at least once before, like I wouldn’t know ビル means building unless I saw it in a list before. But just don’t want to overload myself too much with what isnt “necessary” for the exam just yet.

I am actually using WaniKani alongside Bunpro as well. Used to be around lv 21 but reset on 1st Jan 2023, when I resumed my Japanese study. Used to study but then stopped around 1.5 years ago due to busy irl stuff. I think I know most of N4 kanji, definitely know all N5 kanji. Just need quite a bit of brushing up to be ready for N4 exam.

I find kanji the most interesting about this learning process, and kinda neglected vocabs. So I’m thinking about trying to learn more vocab mainly from reading graded materials, that way I learn new words more naturally, and maybe I won’t get bored just trying to memorise words from list/SRS. Looking at Satori Reader atm.

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#6

Hey thanks for the suggestion, learning core 10k words really is useful. I’m gonna check it out.

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#7

Just so you know, you can set it to learning N5 words or N4 words or the core 10k, “kana only”, etc.
And it’s free :wink:

#8

torii srs is my goat. highly recommend AND you can check the wanikani supplement button to avoid overlapping vocab with wk

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