文プロ(Bunpro): BunsGiving & Black Friday Sale 2024 - Japanese Grammar and Vocab SRS

Hi, all! :raised_hands:

You can now learn N1 Grammar on Bunpro in Japanese!


Purpose :fire:

This is a new feature for N1-level learners who want to study grammar in Japanese. By learning in Japanese, you won’t have to switch between English and Japanese during your studies, which allows you to keep your brain in ‘Japanese mode’ and helps you to think in Japanese.


Are there any differences between English and Japanese? :thinking:

We translated English write-ups into Japanese, so the structure and information remain the same. However, while the original English write-ups are written from the perspective of English speakers for English speakers, we had to modify the Japanese write-ups a bit.

For example, we often compare English and Japanese in our write-ups, but in the Japanese version, we had to remove the explanation that use English meanings.

Our translation goals are (1) to have zero English in Japanese write-ups (and we have successfully written 99.9% in Japanese) and (2) to ensure natural Japanese. So, please note that sometimes the translations may not be 1:1 literal translations.


What is the level of Grammar and Vocabulary? :writing_hand:

We use only the grammar that users have already learned at each level. Regarding vocabulary, we use words that are listed on our N5 to N1 vocabulary lists as much as possible. However, there may be a few words that are not on those lists although they are still commonly used. If you find any of them too difficult or if there’s anything we missed, please let us know! We’re always open to modify and improve our contents.


How to switch between English and Japanese? :arrows_counterclockwise:

Just click the button at the top-right corner of the write-ups box! You can find this switch on every grammar page. Once you change the language, the setting will be applied to all other grammar pages.


Is the Japanese available only N1? :eyes:

Yes, the Japanese write-ups are currently available only for N1 grammar. However, we plan on expanding this all the way down to N3 content in the future!


We hope this new feature can help you in your learning journey! :airplane: :japan:

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Tried the links but getting to an error page, code 500?

Seems we changed the file structure. They should accessible here: Kana Practice | Bunpro

Hiragana Chart

Katakana Chart

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Thank you very much!

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Hey all!

After much anticipation, we’re happy to announce the Beta release of Community Decks! :tada:

Community Decks allow you to:

  • Create your own Decks
  • Clone existing ones to edit as you please
  • Share your Decks (privately and publicly)
  • Access other users’ publicly shared Decks to use on your own.

:world_map: How to Access:

You need to opt into Beta features in your account settings. Simply toggle the “Opt In” setting under “Bunpro Beta” to “Yes” and the new changes will replace the old version of Decks.

You can always opt out of the Beta if you want the old Decks view.
Doing so will not delete your Custom Decks.


:sparkles: Broad Deck Changes

We made some sweeping changes to the Explore Decks and individual Deck pages.

The browse decks page now has four tabs.

  • My Decks:
    • Your Learn Queue Decks, Custom Decks, and Bookmarked Decks
  • Bunpro:
    • This page contains the Bunpro Grammar, Vocab and Misc decks (Kansai-ben and Onomatopoeia)
  • Textbooks:
    • All of the various textbook paths such as Genki, Tae Kim and so on.
  • Community:
    • All public decks grouped by Deck Type (Grammar, Vocab, Anime, Novel and so on)

Each deck tile on the browse page has a “User Count” attached so you can see which Decks are popular. We also added a Bunpro icon to tell which are “Official Bunpro Decks” at a quick glance.

One downgrade was the removal of the Review button on each Deck tile. This was ultimately done because the query to calculate the number due takes a little bit of time. While not an issue when there are only a few Decks, pages with more took several seconds to load sometimes.

  • Given the unexpected sadness about this change, we have brought the little guy out of retirement on just the My Decks page. That means all the decks shown here (learning, custom or bookmarked) will have the button available.

On the Individual Deck pages themselves, we adjusted the information in the header to include the Deck Type and user count.

We also streamlined the available buttons, including a Review button along with the Learn button and made it more clear if the deck was in your Learn queue or not.

The button group in the bottom contains the following buttons:
Bookmark - Edit (if it is your deck) - Clone - Deck Settings


:art: Custom Decks

Creating
Under the My Decks page, you can click on the “Create a New Deck” button to open a form that lets you specify the title, description, type and also upload a cover image.

Once you create a Deck, it will take you to the Edit page.

Building & Editing
The first step of any new Deck is to add a Unit. You can add a title and label to make it more clear what the theme of the unit is. For a textbook Deck for example you might call it ‘Lesson 1’. For an anime deck, it might be Episode 1. Each Deck can have any number of Units.

After you have at least one Unit, you can add cards to your Deck. These cards reference Grammar/Vocab within Bunpro and live under a specific Unit. You can add any number of cards to a Unit.

Within the Add Card search, you can also specify which Unit it should be added to.

Lastly, you can drag and drop both Units and cards to sort the default order they appear in, within the Deck.

To edit the title, description, type or cover image, use the small pencil icon next to the Deck title

image

Cloning
One additional way to build a Deck is to clone an existing one. A cloned Deck will be copy of an existing one but it will belong to you. You can edit it, adding, removing or rearranging it to get it just the way you want.

Sharing Decks
Once you have built your deck, you can optionally choose to share it. This will give you a link you can send directly to another user that will let them see the deck and even study from it.

If you want to share your Deck more broadly, you can send your Deck for admin review, and once approved, it will show up under the Community tab and any user can study from it.

There might even be some “Deck Builder” badges coming in the near future :smiley:


:handshake: Community Decks

Building and sharing a Deck, whether it is for a textbook, manga or TV show, is a great way to help other users also learning from the same media.

With a Bunpro Deck in hand, whether you pre-study the content or simply use the Deck as a quick lookup as you go, it makes reading a new book, or watching a new show go so much more smoothly.

If you make an awesome Deck, don’t be too shy to share it. Even for obscure content, it is guaranteed to have have a positive impact on other users and help them in their learning journey!

Here is an example of a really cool one already made by a user: Japanese Regions & Prefectures


We hope you enjoy this update!

As this is a Beta, we welcome and encourage any and all discussion and feedback. We look forward to hearing from you!

The Bunpro Team :bowing_man:

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Happy BunsGiving 2024! :tada:

BunsGiving is back again this year!

Whether you celebrate it as Thanksgiving, 勤労感謝の日, or as just another day in late November, what better time of the year than now to show someone how much you care by giving them the Gift of Grammar™!


Why spread the Gift of Grammar™?

Over the years, we have had users reach out about gifting Bunpro subscriptions to friends and family. While this has always unofficially been a thing, with the success of BunsGiving a couple years ago, we made it an official time of the year here!

Starting today, through next Monday, all gifted subscriptions are 20% off!

Share the joy of tackling new grammar, smashing a tall stack of reviews, exorcizing pesky ghosts, and seeing your JLPT progress bars slowly fill up. Not to mention the pure joy of synonym hell, the fear of losing motivation to study daily to keep your streak, or yet another color update!! Bunpro truly has something for everyone. :stuck_out_tongue:

So if there is someone you would like to support or encourage, whether it is a friend, a family member, or even that someone special :wink:, a Bunpro subscription is the perfect gift for any occasion.


How can I gift a subscription?

We streamlined the progress this year. Simply log into your Bunpro account, access your subscription page here: Subscription Page and fill in the Bunsgiving Form.

  • The email address or Bunpro username you want to send the gift to
  • How much subscription time you’d like to gift.
  • Lastly, if you would like to include a message to the person you are gifting it to, please let us know. Alternatively, you can gift it anonymously as well.

We will send you an invoice for the subscription time you wish to gift that you can pay for via PayPal. Once we have a transaction ID, we will apply it to their account.

The sale prices are as follows:

Length Price
1 month $5 → $4
1 year $50 → $40
Lifetime $150 → $120
Custom Depends on length

Black Friday Lifetime Sale

Maybe that special someone in need of a little grammar TLC is you. While the Bunsgiving Sale is active, you can give yourself the Gift of Grammar directly with a discounted lifetime membership ($120). See your subscription page for details.


Annual Lifetime Sale

The BunsGiving Sale on subscriptions is separate from the upcoming annual sale on lifetime memberships ($120) that will begin in late December.


As always, the Bunpro team is eternally grateful for the continued support and feedback everyone provides. You are what we are thankful for this BunsGiving Season. :bowing_man:

いつもありがとうございます。

Bonus festive prose (with a lot of editing) from ChatGPT

The air is thick and warm, like the promise of comfort and chaos in equal measure. It’s the scent of grammar reviews slowly coming due, releasing an earthy aroma that mingles with the sweet waft of cinnamon and cloves from Thanksgiving dinner. Your fingers tingle for the excitement of synonyms and at least one “Can you say it another way?” in your upcoming review session.

The air smells like memories, too: the sweetness of N5 grammar being mastered, the frustration of N3’s synonym hell, and of course, the pure ecstasy you felt when reading an N1 grammar writeup all in Japanese for the first time. It’s the smell of familiarity, of huddling over the keyboard, of a million tiny moments stitched together over years, each one leaving its own linguistic mark. You can almost taste it, thick and heavy, as the interface pulls you in, filling you with a hunger for knowledge, nostalgia, and the quiet joy of tradition. It’s Bunsgiving—before the first new grammar of the day, before the chaos of a review pile too large to tackle in one sitting, right there in the stillness lies the promise that everything else will be just as it should. :turkey:

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