I’m with ya. The main reason I wanted to burn through Bunpro is that I’d been doing WK for a year and a half at that point and couldn’t even read よつばと！ yet – I severely neglected grammar for the longest time and I wanted to break out of the rut. Fortunately it worked 
Bunpro has been a godsend.
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Nice, I’m glad it’s worked well for you! I had already done some basic grammar before joining WaniKani (Japanese From Zero and Tae Kim), but my kanji and reading have long since surpassed my grammar. That’s why I’m trying to focus more on grammar now. I should probably sign up for the N3 in December just to force myself to finish studying the N3 grammar points…
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How do you actually benefit from the minimal setting? I always look up the answer after I get it wrong the first time, so I almost never get it wrong on the follow up review. This of course means that I don’t get any ghost reviews with the minimal setting.
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It’s not something that I pay much attention to, although since I often don’t clear all my reviews in one sitting, it’s easy for a review that I missed to not come up again until whenever I decide to do another round, by which time it’s not fresh in memory anymore.
I’ve also got all 700+ grammar points bouncing around in my SRS, which makes it easier to neglect rarer grammar (that I rarely/never see in my own reading).
Also also, “minimal” ghosts lets me use the SRS normally, and also deliberately create a ghost for something if I want. (e.g., I get a review wrong, then remember it on the next pass, but I want a ghost of it, so I fail it a 2nd time on purpose.)
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I did Bunpro for most of N5 on the first week and it was all wonderful as I really read every single source (except the videos, too much time investment). Then I realized that with my work schedule and available time, I could only focus on one SRS, 3 times per day, and WaniKani won that choice.
However, every 5-10 minutes I have of free time, I check Human Japanese and I find it very comprehensive. I could definitely see coming back to Bunpro after I go through all of Human, and when I’m about lvl 20 in WaniKani.
Thoughts? Maybe I just didn’t know how to “ration” the Bunpro levels? I got to a point where I went from 95-100% success to a LOT of red because I was forgetting WHY I was supposed to conjugate that way.
Human Japanese seems to be the missing puzzle piece here, but I still don’t know how to structure-schedule the required daily review between the 3 systems.
Apologies for the random post.
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Back when I was approaching 60 in WK, I was averaging 300-400 reviews per day and couldn’t very well stay on top of all of that + 文プロ. A few months after 60 though, I jumped back on the grammar SRS and it’s worked pretty well for me; especially since the kanji/vocabulary in the review sentences are hardly even a concern at this point.
I also feel like 文プロ is best-suited for learners who’ve already got all the basics under their belt, though, which is anyone at or beyond ~N4 level or so. All of the N5 grammar points are still great for practice, comprehension checking, and retention, but I just don’t think that SRS is the best way to attempt to learn (or drill) the fundamentals of the entire language.
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Thanks! Yeah your approach makes sense. I will slowly drill trough Human Japanese and keep ramping up the WK levels.
I will definitively return to Bunpro eventually as I found it a better system than Anki.
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Did I understand you right that you did all of N5 in one week? If so, then that is incredibly fast (especially if you didn’t know a lot of it already).
I started doing BP along with WK and I’ve definitely slowed down on WK, but I don’t necessarily that was entirely BP’s fault, and now I have daily Japanese classes of 3 hours, so I want my free time to not only be Japanese, haha.
The way I do BP right now is that I added new grammar points when I have a bit more time, mostly weekends, and most of the time I just do reviews. Because of this speed I tend to have about 15 reviews a day on BP. A very low amount that doesn’t impact the time I have for WK. It means I’m getting through one whole lesson on BP every 2-3 weeks (one lesson is 16-18 grammar points in N4).
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I kinda wish they just have a “study this sentence more” button to manually create a ghost review. Any chance this could happen at some point @pushindawood?
Bunpro has a wrap up button like WaniKani if you didn’t know.
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I know it’s there, I just don’t use it. I decide my stopping point based on how many reviews I’ve answered right 
I agree though that it would be nice to be able to manually “focus” a sentence.
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Hi!
To be honest, I got through 80% of N5 in 4-5 days. The final sections where rough but still manageable.
I realized I was not retaining the knowledge of the later sections at that speed, and I was just “beating” the Bunpro system. SRS needs to be treated fairly so I decided to focus on WaniKani before tackng future Ns. I wanted to add gradual and more comprehensive Human Japanse chapters first, before sticking with the Bunpro approach, which seems to work more to review-confirm your knowledge than an actual pedagogic approach to learning.
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I want this feature too.
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I keep hearing this, but I disagree. BP have worked and still work extremely well for me as my main grammar resource. However, I have noticed that that doesn’t seem to be the case for everyone. I just wanted to say that it can. (I did not say it to try and convince you btw, it sounds like you have found a way that currently works for you and that is the important thing. 
)
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Overall, ghost are incredibly important and have helped immensely. However, I can say the one negative about ghost reviews is that I unintentionally start to memorize the content of the sentence that connects the grammar point which sort of “cheats” the answer. I’ve found keeping a high review count does help with this as there is just more randomization to spread around for me to forget but it’s certainly more apparent for low review number. So personally, I’d rather kill the ghost/streak and move forward to a new example rather than develop this habit that saturates the productive input method. It’s also another reason to switch to a comprehensive approach to be sure I can read and understand without always equating an English translation.
Same here. To be fair though, aren’t you taking classes so you can ask questions for grammar points when needed ?? But I agree, if you have a foundation then building the grammar points can work very well on BP. A raw beginner self-learner may struggle a bit more and would likely have alot of open ended questions that would likely be most efficiently addressed with a teacher/tutor/native (I certainly needed outside help). I think we all have questions no matter the level though. To say any resource (SRS or otherwise) would replace any human interaction in the learning process is a bit naive (all the more why the message boards of helping each other has been important). Ideally, I would like the best of both worlds (sounds like you have an awesome balance with classroom experience).
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Well… I actually come to BP to clarify what they teach us in class since I’m doing Japanese classes in Japan and my teachers don’t use English to explain things. So I don’t actually go ask my teachers to clarify things I learn on BP. When they teach me a new-to-me grammar point in class I will ask them for clarifications and if it is an easy grammar point, I might not then have to go search for myself to figure it out; but if it is more complex, then their explanations might not help at all (because I don’t understand enough Japanese). Class have sometimes made it clearer when to use a certain grammar point I learnt on BP, but in that case I still learnt it on BP.
I would preferably learn the grammar points on BP first, and then have class potentially clarify nuances. However, since my classes went through N5 in 3 months, and N4 is finishing in 3 months too (I have one month left of that). I have not been able to go that fast on BP! N3 will at least be done over 6 months so maybe I can get ahead then. But BP and the textbooks used in class do not order things in the same way, and I learn the BP arranged way on BP.
But my foundation in grammar, aka N5, I learned completely by myself with only BP. This was before classes began. So yes, of course, there have been times I needed clarification on stuff, but I still didn’t need to go to a tutor. There are a lot of Youtube resources (not always linked on BP). And I also used the WK and BP forums a time or two, which I guess goes to human interaction, but still something used more as a self-learner.
So no, I still reject the notion that BP is better when you have a foundation or teacher/tutor/native support. Those can help with any grammar studies for sure, on BP too. But aren’t necessary depending on how you learn and what works best for you. Of course, interaction in some kind (such as a forum to ask questions) is really helpful and I’m not saying that isn’t a great thing to have. But for me BP did the job by itself to teach N5, and I’m confident it could have kept teaching me by itself with its linked resources and an occasional question on the BP/WK forums.
Perhaps that is just me, and how I learn, but BP does the job for me.
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This may be the best quote for BunPro learning I’ve ever read. You could have a quote on the homepage or something! My opinions were subjective and I certainly don’t have an absolute dogmatic perspective what is best for everyone as that doesn’t make sense. I totally respect your formula and it’s enlightening to hear a diversity of approaches as it helps broaden my own. And no disrespect, I don’t know the details of your classroom experience but I’m very surprised on some of the details shared.
But I will say that, much like WK needs reading to supplement the SRS program, grammar SRS like BP needs (or at least greatly benefits from) writing/speaking/listening as a supplement as well. I’m a firm believer in this aspect. And unlike reading, the later 3 needs a human on the other side to reciprocate. But the chicken or egg theory as beginner (tutor or not), I can only say what I’ve experienced to this point which as I mentioned was subjective.
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Oh, I agree completely. But as you saidwrote, it is supplemental. It is what helps you master it, not the thing you needed to learn it. That might seem like splitting hairs. But since we were talking about what is essential for building a base of grammar knowledge, then I don’t think it is splitting hairs in this case.
However, depending on what you want to use the language for, there are kinds of activities need to truly learn/master the language. For example, someone who wants to do calligraphy really do need to learn stroke order, sure they can look it up when they need it, but they will want to learn it for the kanji they want to use.
The same way that someone who wants to read, really need to practice reading to get good at it.
So what you need as a supplement to BP depends on what your goals are. For me, my main goal of learning Japanese is actually to read it, and understand the culture better (amazing how much you can learn about a culture from its language). So the main supplement I use is reading. My Japanese classes are actually starting to annoy me quite a bit because they focus so much on speaking, and regularly on writing, but not much at all on reading. But alas, I’m already signed up and tuition paid. XD
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Sorry to hear about your classes. My own opinion on classes is somewhat mixed too as everyone participating has to share the same learning tempo. I’ve met some nice people and had fun collaborating but it didn’t feel time efficient to me. I’ve recently started italki again as it gives more degrees of freedom, more so than even a conversation exchange. I will give them my last few learned BunPro lessons and we can drill them however we want and it’s been time/money well spent thus far (typo edits)
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My classes are all right. They certainly help me with rounding out my vocabulary. And I get to use that and the grammar I’ve learnt and am learning so it sticks better. But I think it does the most for my vocabulary since I make sure to add all textbook vocab to an SRS (Torii). Plus I have classmates to hang with in Japan. And studying Japanese gave me an option for a one year visa in Japan. (My purpose with getting the visa was not to learn Japanese, but get to be in Japan for a whole year. XD)
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A bit random but I’ve just started using Bunpro and I’m wondering at what level of reading comprehension I could get reasonably to by using WK and BP as my primary sources of learning as opposed to going through a tradition textbook like Genki? Right now I’m self-studying (not taking classes or anything like that) and when I initially tried to study with a traditional textbook on my own, it was virtually impossible for me to pace myself well, so it seems I learn best under an SRS system since the pace is automatically built in.
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