Why are you giving the answer to me?

Bunpro
#1

Sure they’re different forms, but all I have to do is remove the です from below and put in 行かなかった. Can’t even glance at the verb to try avoid getting the answer.
Hints aren’t even on.

う-Verb (Negative-Past)

昨日, negative-past standard (fill in)
昨日、行かなかったです
昨日, 行きませんでした (行く)

It just seems counterproductive for learning. I don’t get to test my ability with either form because the other will always be there ready to add or remove です. It feels incredibly bad having to try cover up my screen to not be spoonfed the answer.

3 Likes
#2

Hi, welcome to the forums! Hopefully I can help add some clarity to this decision. There are 2 primary reasons for this decision. The first is that this lesson is only checking for your ability to properly conjugate the verbs mentioned in the forms mentioned. The fact that you can remember to remove です here to make the ‘Negative-past, Standard’ conjugation is actually a sign that you’ve got this grammar point down. I know it may seem simple or easy, but it sometimes grammar points really are just that simple.

The second reason for the current setup is that we’ve recently adjusted many example sentences and study questions to match completely. There’s a whole lot of stuff going on in the back that lead us to this decision, but to keep it simple, this helps us streamline a lot of things coming in the future.

Of course, we’re always listening to our users’ opinions and thoughts and if we feel the community isn’t satisfied with changes such as these, they’ll be re-evaluated and possibly changed or adjusted.

4 Likes
#3

but I hadn’t yet learned either form when I started doing this. I covered it up to actually test myself and I struggled to remember for some time. The only thing I learned is that it was the same as the one above/below depending on which form I’m being asked to fill in. Had I been given the same question without being shown other forms I would have gotten it wrong almost every single time.

I also don’t understand what the benefit is to showing the other conjugations. For example seeing 行きませんでした also helps me remember that form shifts one spot on the kana chart 行く-> 行き (u → i) and 行かなかった shifts two spots 行く → 行か (u → i → a). Sure I’ve “learned” it enough to know which one is which when I look at the answer for the other one, but doing the opposite isn’t learning either. That’s just pattern recognition without knowing the form. My brain should go “conjugate it this way” not “do the opposite from what you’re seeing right next to it”.

In other words, I do not get to test myself on whether I remember to use 行き or 行か either because the answer is already indirectly written for me above or below. I would like to not look at it so I can test my memory, but it’s kind of like telling me not to look at the answer when it’s right next to the input field. Of course my brain is instinctively going to try and make me grab the answer when it’s right in front of me.

For this grammar point I feel forced to open notepad and add a bunch of verbs and conjugate it myself. I’m sure I will know this grammar point pretty well any minute now, but I’m worried this will be a repeating issue on other conjugated forms later on where I’m tricking myself into thinking I know the answer meanwhile I couldn’t write it correctly in notepad with a random verb even if I tried my best.

If there was a toggle to hide the other conjugated forms, I’d use it so I don’t cheat myself. I don’t want to know how to get it right on bunpro I want to know how to do it.

1 Like
#4

Love you guys for this, BTW!
:sunglasses: :+1:

2 Likes
#5

I felt the same way about trans/intransitive. adding reviews for 捕まる/捕まえる vocab taught me transitive/intransitive better than the grammar point because the hints arent as helpful.
You will see this grammar many times, often with less helpful hints

I have 例えば風を (emphasis on cause) , 暖かい服装をする (引く）which doesn’t offer any hints it’s supposed to be ひかないように by default

#6

Ah, I see what you mean here. The simple reason for why the questions are currently set up this way is that these study questions are meant to practice just the negative, past-tense part of the verbs rather than the entire verb itself. The reason for this is that the negative conjugating of verbs, (the いく→いか) is covered in separate grammar lessons that come prior to this one. The Bunpro order will assume you’ve covered the previous lessons. If you’d like more practice conjugating the negative forms of verbs I recommend reviewing N5 Lesson 2: 7/12 and N5 Lesson 2: 8/12, and adding them to a cram list.

Regarding your concern about this being a repeated issue; this style of review sentence is not common, and is typically relegated to the earlier levels as learners are still getting familiar with the basics.

#7

Is there any specific reason you felt adding those terms to cram did a better job at teaching you transitive/intransitive than the grammar point? If it’s something we can do better, then we’d love to take a look and adjust things accordingly, as we always want our grammar points to be useful and clear.

Regarding your example, the reason this sentence’s tense hint is a little vague is that the primary hints at what would fit here are contextual in the parts of the sentence that are visible. For example the sentence uses 風邪（かぜ）which means ‘the cold illness’ and 暖かい（あたたかい）服装（ふくそう）which means warm clothes. We felt these context clues would be enough to point towards the response even for users not using any other hints. Of course if you have any suggestions or ideas about how we can make it clearer then we’re always listening and happy to receive feedback. :smiley:

#8

Just cutting in about conjugations and Bunpro in particular as I’ve been following this thread. I don’t actually believe that Bunpro can help me conjugate in any meaningful way. This isn’t the scathing criticism it may appear to be without context. In my experience learning language (any language) I’ve found that conjugation is largely a reflexive action, much like learning pig-latin or gibberish in English. You either do it by instinct, or you really can’t do it. There is basically no in-between, and no amount of SRS will ever help a person conjugate. Well, to a limited extent I suppose you really could learn a very slow way of doing it enough to cheat on a test with rote memory, but in reality that might actually hurt you. I’ve seen people try to learn pig-latin that way, for example, and subsequently crutch themselves miserably for a very long time.

In my humble opinion, it would be most preferable if Bunpro didn’t teach conjugation at all. The only realistic way I can see any progress is by speaking out loud or at least doing very high speed drills on instinct. I think Bunpro could help measure my progress at conjugation, but I neither expect Bunpro to help teach me conjugation, nor do I believe that within the SRS system any meaningful contribution could even be made. At least for conjugations that I really don’t know, I find it has a very heavy negative impact on my absorption of the base grammar-point, enough that I wish it was taught without any variation so that I could rote memorize it for later integration in true grammar usage with a real person. At the very least, it could be separated out. Anyway, just my 2c; I don’t really expect Bunpro to listen or change. Mostly I just wanted to air that out.

#9

I think a good example of that is irregular verbs in English. English being my second language, the way they teach you irregular verbs over here is by making you learn and recite the table of irregular verbs by heart.
I never bothered learning that table, and am absolutely incapable of reciting the irregular verbs by heart. But, whenever I have to use one, it just comes instinctively.

#10

I think, if Bunpro could implement some explanations by Tokini Andy (he redid those lessons for Genki I and II, 3rd Edition), the conjugation would be much easier to understand or getting it to become instinctively.
Like, instead of “る-verbs” and “う-verbs”, just call them directly いちだん and ごだん as Japanese kids learn them too (not only mentioning shortly in the texts) and then everything gets way easier (“る-verbs” = いちだん verbs do have only 10 exceptions IIRC one has to remember, instead of some wishy washy explanations that some verbs ending with る follow this or that way of conjugation).

Regarding the way of reviewing with 2 spoiling sentences, I’d suggest, that all 3 sentences have blanks the user has to type out. So not only the conjugation gets reviewed but also the rest (no です, with です, with ます). If that’s technically possible.

(Other than that, I love this platform, even though I’m still at the beginning of this journey.)

#11

I used the hints about whether it was transitive/intransitive. same as OP using the hints for negitive past. When doing reviews testing something else (like vocab reviews) I get a deeper understanding of the original point

This sentence was just the next negitive うverb in my review queue.

I wouldn’t change anything

1 Like
#12

I 100% agree that learning conjugations is harder than other grammar points. At this point bunpro

or do what they currently do and intergrate the grammar with many kinds of sentences. On the assumption you will practice enought conjugation somewhere to answer the sentences.

You plan on learning conjugation later. Bunpro expects most people to get extra conjugation practice now.
Bunpro is making their product more ‘All-In-One’ but most people use other resources too. Drill conjugation to learn it intitially, then add it to bunpro so you don’t forget later.

1 Like