It seems to me the quality of sentences and grammar explanations on Bunpro is very high now, at least up to where i am (70% of N4). I just started using it in August last year or so.
Yeah, Anki is still the most flexible option, though hard to set up. And for reading vocab, there’s also floflo.moe, which lets you learn all the vocab for specific books/manga.
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That is also true. The good part is also that you have a teacher that you can ask, as well as more practise.
It depends of the kind of learner that you are, really.
I just think that at level 16 now, OP will be another 10 to 15 levels up by the time he starts and it might very well get a bit boring. But for reinforcement it is definitely good.
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Thanks for the input, I have been having the same thought. Since you commented, allow me to elaborate my situation.
I am currently doing a bachelors degree in Maths and Data Science, I am halfway done (3 semesters done). My plan was to do one course in Japanese in semster 5 and 6. At the rate I am learning Japanese now, it seems like the courses would be really simple. However, there is something tofor add on. The Japanese courses are notoriously known to be some of thethe hardest introductionary language courses, which is good for my part. I have also only studied on my own so far, so having someone to talk to (both students and teachers) would be very helpful. It will hopefully to be fun! And I should be able to find contacts I can practice with, which may be very helpful at that point.
I am also doing pnly one course per semester, so if it is too easy I will just have more time for my «actual» studies. I do not think the Japanese institute will allow me to go directly into the 2nd or 3rd course, since I have to get in the whole Japanese bachelor just to take the two single courses.
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Another 2 cents: I loved my Japanese classes at uni. I took an extensive reading class first which involved reading as much content as possible at your level (really simple stuff for me) and learning to avoid looking everything up. The idea was to read tonnes. Was really good. Next I took a second year Jap class and I really enjoyed that too. Was at the right level for me so I think that’s prob the key. And was good to interact with classmates. Anyway, all the best with it if you do take a Japanese course at uni.
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Another good resource, particularly for genki users:
It’s basically every exercise on genki, but on your computer so you can type instead of having to write it down! I was legit considering ignoring all those exercises and just throw myself into the SRS god, but this website is a godsend to get more practice in a comfortable way
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With Genki, there are exercises that have a listening component, and they also have the answers which are spoken shortly after each question. Even questions that don’t require listening to answer may have a listening component where you can hear the question being asked and the answer being spoken, look for the little speaker icon next to each question.
Yes, this is how I do it! What I do is take several (usually 6-12) example sentences from each grammar point and plug them into Anki. I take most of the example sentences from the exercises with a listening component. Each grammar point in Genki has at least one section of exercises that have a listening component.
As for the cards, I do E-J, meaning I see an English translation of the sentence and have to produce the Japanese translation. This ensures that I truly remember them, since I have to be able to fully understand each grammar point in order to produce it in Japanese. I tend to focus more on sentences using grammar that I struggle with, and I also prefer to focus on sentences that use vocab I struggle with, since using vocab in sentences makes them stick a lot better. You also can create your own sentences, but I’d recommend using Genki’s example sentences as a template.
I prefer this to Bunrpo since Bunpro doesn’t require you to form entire sentences, and you can’t tailor the sentences to your liking… Of course, Bunpro has already done all the work for you, whereas making your own sentences takes time and effort, but it can be tailored to your preferences. Of course, I don’t use Bunpro so I can’t speak for all the pro’s and con’s.
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Personally, I don’t like Duolingo very much. I tried using it to start learning, but once you get past the hiragana everything starts to fall apart. It will let you read a table with kanji + pronunciation (if you aren’t on the mobile app), then just expects you to remember that forever. I never learned any grammar from it other than that you count birds and rabbits differently from everything else, or something like that.
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Genki didn’t do it for me, partially because it sometimes feels more like a vocab retention book, and a bad kanji book, and many other things that aren’t grammar. And also because many of the exercises are based on learning in a group environment, not alone. I like some of their listening stuff, but there are so many other things that don’t work for me, that I put it down for now.
BunPro also didn’t do it for me, for some reason none of the information seemed to stick in my brain.
I’m now having some success with Japanese Ammo, plus putting some sentences from it into my own Anki deck. I have done all of her beginner videos and will now work through her intermediate videos, which as far as I understand cover most of N5 and N4 as well as some misc higher level points, and then I’ll return to other resources like Genki and Tae Kim again to fill any gaps that there might be in Japanese Ammo.
I guess for N3 grammar I’ll need a new strategy, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. At some point (probably after completing N3?) I think it will be more a matter of reading/listening, and looking up new grammar structures as they come.
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yeah, i didn’t like Duolingo that much for Japanese either. It was fun and you learned a word here and there, but it has a lot of problems.
- Because it doesn’t have SRS, you often don’t see a word for a long time or ever after you encountered it, so you’ll often forget it quickly.
- Dragging the elements in the right order to form a sentence is a hassle. Do one mistake early on, and you can’t rearrange those elements, gotta remove all of them.
- It throws random kanji at you without translation or furigana.
- The course stopped pretty quickly for me. It seems like they added new levels and lessons now (i completed level 3, now there’s 4-6), but it stops at a not very advanced level
- It has some nonsense sentences like わたしのいぬはぼうしをうります (My dog sells hats.)
- There was no central place to save or look up vocabulary used in lessons
Maybe they improved it with the latest revision where they added the new levels, who knows.
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that surprises me somewhat. in that case, reviews should do the job, maybe you just need to do more reviews.
Remembering grammar is definitely harder than remembering kanji, because many are very similar and you have no mnemonics, so you shouldn’t do too many lessons at once. For me, it also often doesn’t stick immediately if i do too many lessons, but over time with reviews it works great.
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On BunPro I kept getting same items wrong in reviews over and over. I think it might have something to do with how the question prompts work in their SRS - my own Anki cards have no English on the Japanese side of the card, and vice versa. So I need to produce the entire sentence from my head every time instead of just filling in a small bit, like on a cloze card.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want to talk down on BunPro, or tell others not to use it - it clearly works well for a lot of people.
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ah, i see. yeah, no worries, i believe you and that it can work not so well for some people. i do think an english → japanese mode would be a good addition to Bunpro.
I do think Bunpro would also work well just as extra practice for textbook users for the multiple fill-out sentences per grammar point. And they sometimes use multiple grammar points simultaneously, which connects them neatly. But of course then it might be a bit expensive, and extra work to set up.
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Thank you for linking to Yotsubato. This is really cute
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oh and sometimes DuoLingo gives the answer away by image. Come on, this is ridiculous. This is the first thing i saw when i gave DuoLingo another chance just now ^^
I think that’s kinda their concept, to sometimes not make questions hard, but to make you associate the right answer quickly, but… meh.
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Haha wow. And thanks for the help from all of you guys, it really helps
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That is their way of teaching you the word. They don’t have their content split into lessons and reviews, they just give you the answer the first time around and make it harder as you go on. Not that I’m recommending it. I tried DuoLingo for a few months before WaniKani and feel like I learned very little.
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yeah, i realized that a bit later, but it’s not obvious, and it invites people to just click on the image without reading the text.
I actually had a bit of fun doing DuoLingo lessons just now, it wasn’t bad as listening practice and repetition, could be alright for transit (which is how i used it for a long time).
But the interface is cumbersome, takes a long time to enter a sentence. And there are other problems, like i listed above.
I believe Bunpro lets you add your own example sentences now? I haven’t used it for a while so I’m not certain.
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No, i’m pretty sure not, just checked. You can add notes to a grammar item.
Edit: You can, i’m dumb. See below.
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