Bunpro as a supplement to WaniKani

Japanese Language Grammar
#1

I have seen people say WaniKani does a great job at teaching kanji but, when used alone, is not sufficient to learn the Japanese language. This is fine of course because WaniKani is designed to teach kanji. Users here at WaniKani Community talk about the other resources and methods they use to pick up other elements of the language.

I think I am interested in Bunpro, but am worried it may clash with what I’m learning from WaniKani, or race ahead and teach me things differently to how WaniKani might (… I enjoy the WaniKani way of learning).

I wanted to ask if there’s anyone who has used both Bunpro and WaniKani together, what their experience was - and, more specifically, would anyone recommend at what level in their WaniKani journey would be ideal for Bunpro to be introduced? I feel that I may be too low level still to start Bunpro.

Should I hold out a few months?
Should I get stuck into it now?
If I were to pick up a second resource, how does Bunpro stack up?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

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#2

Wanikani is for Kanji learning. Bunpro is for grammar. I don’t see how they are going to clash. You might decide to spend more time on one than thw other, aside from that there should be no cause for concern.

You can pick it up whenever, however Koichi recommends starting grammar from level 10 wanikani so I guess you can wait until then?
Personally I’m trying to fit bunpro into my schedule while doing Genki.
Genki is a nice grammar textbook if you want to look into that.

Here is a list of resources you might want to check out

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#3

I’m currently using Bunpro and Wanikani side by side as my main resources (as well as Torii for vocab). I started Bunpro about a month after I started Wanikani, so when I was level 4/5. Basically, when using Bunpro, don’t worry about not recognising the kanji (there are furigana), and vocab (because Wanikani teaches vocab in a very non-useful/natural order). I think Bunpro is a great tool, and since you are used to doing Wanikani, the style of SNS is good to supplement. Sometimes I think grammar is the most important thing. As individual words/kanji you can look up. I also recommend using something else to learn vocab, but maybe you only start adding resources gradually as to not get overwhelmed.

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#4

Thank you :slight_smile:

I didn’t realise there was a Koichi recommendation! :slight_smile: I like these!

I do own the Genki textbook - I completed a 6 month course “Japanese 1” at a local language institute last year. I imagine it may be due to laziness, but the WaniKani format is so much more appealing and enjoyable than working through a textbook. And, I’ve never worked through a textbook before without a teacher telling me which chapters to complete :open_mouth: … I suppose there’s a first time for everything :smiley:

And thank you for the link :wink: I have seen this thread, I think it is fantastic!

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#5

You are a wise man, Bunpro is excellent.

I wouldn’t recommend jumping into it as a grammar virgin. I’d recommend it after learning a bit of N5’s grammar from a book, and Koichi suggests doing that when you’re at level 10. Later on you could use it as your primary grammar resource, because most of Japanese grammar builds off of previous ones.

Edit:

then yeah you can just jump in holmes

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#6

@Jul3 this is fantastic advice! Thank you!

Yes, well, I believe the longer I use WaniKani the more demanding and numerous those reviews are going to be… so I’m also slightly reluctant to commit to more… but I imagine Bunpro may be worthwhile. (hence the thread! trying to find out more from people who have used it! :slight_smile:)

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#7

Can you link to Torii for grammar?

#8

I’m doing the trial of bunpro at the moment, and it’s okay, but I feel like I’m not really learning anything there. The review prompts are confusing to me, and just typing in a specific part of the sentence doesn’t really test the understanding of the actual grammar, I think.

As an alternative, I would recommend duolingo.com. It teaches conversational Japanese with great examples and exercises, and it’s free (with ads, and paid without ads). It’s a little confusing for total beginners, but if you know the very basics, I think it’s a great tool to get started and complements Wanikani well.

(Edit:I know I recommended Bunpro in another thread, but after using it a little longer, I think Duolingo is the better alternative.)

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#9

Hi @Held, thank you for this advice!

I have tried Duolingo a couple of times, and I find it either spends too much time teaching me things I already know or it teaches things that feel far too advanced for me! :laughing: I become impatient and flee! It sounds like you have found it useful though… perhaps it is worth investing some more time in…

I tried using Lingodeer for a week or so, but I also found this felt like it was teaching me things that were either too simple or too advanced…

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#10

I know what you mean. I used it a few years ago, and found it mostly confusing. It seems to have gotten much better, though. (Or I have gotten smarter :upside_down_face:)

I guess you’ll just have to try bunpro and see if it works better for you :slightly_smiling_face:

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#11

I’m currently using both and I would agree with @Jul3. Don’t worry about knowing the kanji, you can click on them to see the furigana and check the English translation. Plus, you will actually pick up some kanji that gets used really frequently like 私, 君, 彼.

The other thing is don’t worry about getting everything wrong at first. I used to get a bit discouraged because I would get like 90% on my WK reviews and only 60-70% on BP, but if you stick with it you get much better with time.

It’s definitely improved my listening skills. I’m much better at hearing parts of speech even if I don’t know what they mean yet.

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#12

Ah, thank you! How exciting, I would definitely love to improve my listening skills!

#13

That’s not so different from WaniKani. You give couple word answers on WaniKani, but that doesn’t mean you actually understand how to use the word.

Just curious, are you reading most of the external resources included with each grammar point?

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#14

would you guys say genki + wanikani is enough? I much prefer genki’s approach to bunpro’s

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#15

That’s true. I don’t know the difference between 少ない and 少し from Wanikani, for example, and I’m not very happy about it. I hope I’ll learn the difference once I see those words in the wild.

But with bunpro, I think it’s worse. Take のです for example. According to the Wasabi explanation (yes, I read most of the external resources) it has five functions. Bunpro has [asking for explanation・explaining・emphasis] as a prompt, but that doesn’t really match the Wasabi explanation.

Other grammar points aren’t so bad, but it still feel like I’m learning Bunpro instead of Japanese. Duolingo feels much more natural in comparison.

That’s just my impression, though. If it works for other people, then that’s great!

#16

少ない is used as an adjective whereas 少し is used as an adverb

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#17

Cool. Thanks :smile:

#18

The thing I like about BunPro is that it has the option to organize the grammar points you study according to the order they’re presented in a few textbooks. I’ve been using it to supplement my studies from Genki I. You can also link your WK api key to BunPro so it’ll show you furigana for kanji you haven’t seen on WK yet but not for ones you have learned.

I really like SRS so BunPro’s been great for grammar review, at least for me :slight_smile:

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#19

Human Japanese (http://www.humanjapanese.com/) is the best Japanese learning ANYTHING that I have ever used. It’s an online textbook with the most natural and logical explanations I’ve ever seen. It has fully voiced example sentences and vocabulary words. And I’ve tried everything on the apple app store and the popular things online, as well as textbooks over the past 10 years. It’s well worth the price and I can’t recommend it enough. There are trial versions of it (Lite) if you want to see if it’s your cup of tea. It covers beginner and intermediate concepts. I wish there was an advanced version. The author has a gift, I wish there as more from them.

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#20

I can’t thank you enough! :slight_smile: I remember doing the trial for this about 3 years ago - but I had forgotten the name! The trial was brilliant - back then finances were very tight (full-time student!) so I did not continue with a subscription… but now I’m thinking I will.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! :smiley:

1 Like