Recommending Bunpro to Level 20+ Users

Japanese Language Grammar
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Hi ya, Avid user of Wanikani here, been grinding out this app and have reached Level 27 as of current.

Throughout my WaniKani journey, Japanese grammar has always been on my mind. After all, It doesn’t really matter how much Kanji and Vocabulary you know if you fail to understand the structure that gives meaning to everything, now does it!

I finished Genki 1 and half of Genki 2 before starting Wanikani, dropping grammar in favour of learning kanji until I reached Level 20, where I had started to read some threads on how to improve my grammar skills.

Previously, my experience with grammar books had been alright, I found that, especially with Genki, they teach you a few grammar points and a handful of vocab words which you have to learn to be able to complete the corresponding workbook.

I would usually find it hard to stay consistent with grammar learning, doing a whole chapter and the corresponding workbook exercises for four hours straight for a few days and then not touching the book due to my A levels for a month.

Wanikani and SRS in general has massively helped that problem for me, having consistently levelling up in around 7 and a half days my vocab and Kanji knowledge has exponentially increased, it being sometimes the only form of work I do on a day allowing me to feel that I had somewhat progressed even if I had been lazing around all day.

Thus I wanted to find a SRS program for Japanese grammar and searched the forums, coming across Bunpro.

I had heard of the platform back when I was Level 10 and shrugged the idea of using it off, like I had with the idea of using Wanikani for around 2-3 months.

After giving it another go, and learning how the website works I am here to pleasantly report that it is indeed a fantastic tool, enabling me to pick up from where I left of, around halfway through N4 and complete N4 and more than half of N3 in under 50 days.

The way they teach grammar points with so many example sentences and the SRS review system they have where you fill in the blanks of a sentence with the required grammar is fantastic and much better than any Genki textbook I’ve ever touched.

For now my plan is to reach L60 WK, a goal that has held steadfast since I started the app, and complete JLPT grammar on Bunpro, which should take me another 80 days or so, before using Koohi.cafe to start learning more words and grammar to aid me in visual novel/light novel reading.

Although sometimes I do feel swamped with reviews (I usually do 3/4 hours of reviews of wanikani(Roughly 300+ reviews and 30 lessons a day when available, 5 Grammar points a day on BunPro) the feeling of accomplishment when I look back on how much my Japanese skills have progressed over the past 7 Months have really shown.

TLDR: Above L20 WK? Use Bunpro!

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I completely understand how bunpro could be really efficient for learning a lot of grammar points. I don’t know if much has changed in bunpro since I left it.
But adding another srs system on top of wanikani was something I couldn’t manage then.
Bunpro at that time had some bugs where you couldn’t sync wanikani with the furigana and all and I found the grammar explanations lacking.
But I digress, Bunpro might not be the right fit If you want to learn how to immediately apply the grammar for conversation.
With Textbooks like Genki and Quartet, I was able to practice forming sentences and such.
Nowadays, I do use srs for grammar, but I mine sentences and write the grammar explanations myself from the textbooks and immersion content.
Just try out Bunpro through the free trials and if it feels too much you could try out other methods of learning grammar.
What works for me might not work for you and what works for you might not work for me.
I keep this saying close to my heart. :+1:

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Yeah I defo get the point about you saying that two SRS systems are quite the handful. Honestly sometimes I get chain combo’ed from one SRS to another as by the time I’ve finished reviews on WK I’ve got some new ones on BunPro or visa versa.

Plus I don’t really ever have off days, I always put at least 3-4 hours in every day to finish my lessons and reviews which somewhat takes a toll.

The only reason I’m able to keep up with this is that I don’t have anything else going on currently.

That being said, If someone where to choose doing 2/1 grammar points a day it might be more feasible and less of a burden than the 30-5 split I’m doing.

Definitely agree about how workbooks allow you to better practice forming sentences as well as handwriting and remembering hiragana. Can’t lie those M and N row Hiraganas are looking prettttty similar sometimes :O.

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All of it? I love Bunpro too, but that seems optimistic.

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You should do whatever works for you, but my experience of filling in the blanks was that it was completely divorced from both listening/reading and talking.

I found questions like “Using the grammar we have just learned, how would you say this / what does this sentence say?” much more useful for embedding grammar. Followed up with “We have learned 3 ways of saying ~X, use each of them to say this…”.

So, you’ve just learned the ないといけない expression, and the question is: How would you say “I have to do my homework this evening”? And then you have to remember and use なきゃ and なくちゃ to do the same thing.

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I’ve always found Bunpro helpful since I tend to forget grammar points that I don’t see very often. The reviews take a lot out of me sometimes but I can tell that it’s eustress that causes gains. I’m still not even close to done with Bunpro. I go slowly on purpose because N2 notoriously has a lot of grammar points with fiddly overlaps.

Level 20 was around when I started consuming native content. I think that was around the right time. If I’d known about, say, https://cijapanese.com/, I would’ve used that instead of diving right into Netflix and Japanese video games, but still. I credit that with most of my gains after level 20 of WaniKani.

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I’m not super experienced with bunpro, Been using it from half way through N4 to half way through N3 in 50 days (240 points) which I assume are easier than n1,n2 grammar points.

Currently I have around 450 grammar points left in total which should take around 90 days at 5 grammar points a day.

Currently I do around 70ish reviews a day, and I find it ok. Perhaps I won’t be able to continue on this pace the whole way through, but with my current level of insight, shallow as it may be, I don’t think I’ll have much problem.

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Ugh that is driving me crazy. They should just say which “must do” form they want. At this point I can do all of them, I just don’t know which they want me to write.

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I use both WK and Bunpro (on top of KaniWani to help with my rentntion) and I have found that my best bet is to do all of them but prioritize the SRS system that matters most to me.

I am laser focused on WK and am pretty good about doing Bunpro reviews. KW falls by the wayside if I am pressed for time or just burnt out for the day.

The Bunpro is helping me apply all of the vocab I am learning here (and teaching me more) so I find both helpful.

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I hate bunpro (sorry I know some of the devs are here). I tried it again like a year ago and it has the same fundamental problem and I just don’t agree with the approach as a whole. I recommend just buying Genki 1 and 2, or if you finished those, Quartet 1 and 2.

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Probably wasn’t very clear there.

In general I find questions that force you to remember how to create the whole sentence the best way of learning.

So, just after you’ve learned something, you generate example sentences using what you have just learned.

Then later you’re prompted to do it again for each of the methods you’ve learned. So if you know 3 ways, you write/say the sentence using each of them in turn.

Obviously there are no apps that do this… But it’s easy enough to organise for yourself or with a teacher.

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Bunpro didn’t work for me

Instead of learning the grammar, I just learned to associate the right answer with the prompt sentence. I wasn’t making the right connections in my brain

SRS is good for me for kanji and vocab, but reading and producing sentences really cements the grammar

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I really like bunpro and went over all the N5, N4 and N3 grammar over the course of about 9 months. Since then I did about 100 N2 grammar points and a couple dozen N1.

I found it hard to just learn N2 and N1 grammar from bunpro because these points are often a lot more specific and nuanced, sometimes only used in very formal contexts. So what I do now is that I had the points when I encounter them in the stuff I read. This way I know I actually need those things and I have meaningful context to work with.

I would also recommend turning ghosts on (every mistake generates a ghost), it increases the review count of course but it really helped with some of my leeches.

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Yeah that’s the reason I now wait until I see the construct in the wild before I study it in bunpro. I find that encountering the point even only once in a meaningful, “real” context makes something click in my brain that tells it that it’s not just a game of Simon Says and I need to actually understand this.

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Perhaps I find SRS systems like a super +50% learning buff in comp to books. Lucky!

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Yeah I think a buff is a good way to put it: I really need active practice outside of pure SRS to really benefit from the system. It’s a back and forth between the two. That’s why it’s so important to start reading as early as possible.

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This is my biggest issue with Bunpro as well. For questions you repeatedly get wrong, your brain eventually just remembers the sentences/answer combination.
I still use Bunpro, but just as a supplement to whatever textbook I’m using. Conveniently, Bunpro kind of helps you do this by providing decks of grammar points to pair with a select few textbooks. You can do a chapter of Genki or whatever and then add the grammar points from that chapter to your review pool.

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It’s true but I still find value in this. Sometimes I will encounter a construct in the wild, not remember what it means but I remember answering it like 10 times on bunpro so I finally go back and check, and this time with the help of the real-world context it will stick. I often have the same situation with WaniKani vocabulary…

According to my bunpro stats I reviewed すなわち 22 times(!) so far, but then lately I encountered it a bunch in the stuff I’m reading and it’s finally sticking and I can spell it without issue and remember what it means.

For me this isn’t limited to bunpro though, it’s true of basically all SRS: I feel like the knowledge it grants me is “latent”, so to speak, and I need real-world exposure in a meaningful context to truly integrate the vocab/grammar/kanji organically in my brain. That’s why I liked the “buff” metaphor @StudyPug2023 used, I feel like it works as a booster for “immersion” which is where the language is truly learned.

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Same, and I hated that at first, but it kind of works anyway. With the ghost feature turned on, I either get it right away, or I have to repeat it (what seems like) hundreds of times until I start filling it in instantly on sight. Turns out, the second way might be even better for getting it to naturally come out complete instead of having to think about it. It does seem to make it easier for me even when the sentence (finally) changes, but same grammar point.

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