Vocab Review Type Confusion

Bunpro
#1

Can someone explain the pros/cons of the different vocab review types? I’m have been at it for about a week or so and have been bouncing between them to figure out what works and I really can’t tell.

Fill-in was utterly overwhelming because it’s giving me a sentence that I fully don’t understand and expecting me to fill in a word without knowing everything around it. Not sure if this one is meant for later levels or something? I don’t really get how this helps learn the individual word/kanji…
Translate seems like what wanikani does, and seems like the best for just memorizing the meaning from seeing the word as written.
Reading gives more sentence context but only seems to have the “show answer” button and then you self report whether you got it right or not. But I guess this can be used similarly to translate by just doing that in my head before showing the answer.

My goal is really to be able to understand Japanese more so than speak it, maybe eventually be able to carry a conversation but I would like to aim for comprehension first.

Which option should I use for vocab reviews?

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#2

@Jake

You can try this setting for vocab reviews:

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This will show a Japanese word and you guess the English meaning. There’s no typing. When you get more experience under your belt, you can try going from Reveal & Grade to Manual. Then finally from Translate to Fill In.

This is probably the best combination that Bunpro has for beginners and imo, the default settings are bad for that. Hope that makes learning vocab easier!

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#3

I thought fill in & manual was better for beginner since they don’t have enough vocabulary to understand sentences and that the translate & grade is the better for learning once you reach around N4 ?

#4

If you’re a beginner, what are the odds you know the other words in a sentence if you’re starting from scratch? If you have Translate selected, it’s only the vocab word in isolation. So when you get more words under your belt, you can move on to seeing what they are in context of a sentence.

Otherwise, you’ll just have confusion and frustration, which is never good.

#5

Thanks! I will give this a try :slight_smile:

I might honestly reset vocab+grammar and start over since it’s only been a week, and I also didn’t realize for a few days that backspacing and correcting my answer is kinda “cheating” the SRS because it marks it as correct

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#6

Don’t be afraid to restart! It may help make things slightly easier for you with another start. I hope you achieve your goals! :slight_smile:

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