@kenttran @sandalwood
Hey 
Good news!
The new audio is being added right now and there is A LOT OF IT!
Thanks @Asher!
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Kuro sorry for the late reply, but from your perspective how do you feel about the new audio? We used a professional quality mic but my partner is certainly no voice actor and I am certainly no sound technician, so we are (trying) to get them as professional as possibleā¦ as non- professionals hahah. Would like your opinion compared to other audio (feel free to blast us, no hard feelingsā¦ so long as you tell us where you think we can improve 
).
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@Asher Well, Iād hate to say negative things, especially since you guys are doing this nice work 
But if you want to hear my personal opinion - the main problem is the diction/enunciation. She needs to speak louder (as it helps with diction), open her mouth more when speaking vowels and pronounce everything more clearly without changing individual parts of the sentence too much (i.e. volume of individual parts) beyond what is considered the norm in speech. Also, try recording the same line several times and choosing the one which has the least speech artifacts and is the most clearly pronounced.
At the moment, I would not have accepted this if it was a paid job. Iām sorry for being negative, but thatās how I honestly feel.
And so that why I wrote above doesnāt sound like Iām just complaining pointlessly hereās a bit of background info: I did work with professional voice actors on some of my past projects, though it was in english. I also have acting education, though itās been many years since that time and it was not professional. But we did have training specifically regarding speech. It really is very difficult to do properly. I canāt do it myself. But at least I have basic understanding of how it should be.
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Hmmm my only concern with doing it that way is it will start to sound less and less like a real person talking, and more like a shadowing course. I think something to consider is what each individual person is looking for 
. For some people, much better diction will help, for others, they will hate it because it isnāt natural. Therefore they arent learning to listen. For example, my partner has better diction than almost all Japanese people I have metā¦ not defending her, just stating that getting her to clearly pronounce things even more will detract from peoples goals to hear what real Japanese sounds like . On the other hand, if peoples goals are just watching anime etc, they are all pro voice actors, so diction is great. There are really many ways to look at it and it all comes back to who wants what from bunpro. A shadowing tool for perfect diction, a reference tool for real speech patterns, or just simply a casual example of sentences in use 
.
I think ideally there would be 3 options. Casual speech, perfect diction, and casual speech with background noise or even slang. But that is a bit of a pipe dreamā¦ and probably not necessary to actually learn the language. If I can ask, why do you feel perfect pronunciation is important? Compared to what you would hear from your typical Japanese person?
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Well, I think itās important to understand why we want to include audio for the sentences. And that is precisely to allow quickly soak up the sentence in your memory, not just through reading, but through listening as well. And to that end having very clearly pronounced sentences will really make it more efficient.
As an example please take a look at this deck and how sentences are pronounced there:
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/114060567
(I recommend downloading it and listening the sentence examples specifically, not just words)
As you can see the pronunciation is super clear and you donāt have to fight to understand what is being said. This way it allows you to focus on contents of the sentences rather than trying to decipher what is being said. We are here because we are learning grammar, rather than purely for listening practice. And there are many great resources for listening practice already.
I donāt try to convince you that Iām right, just sharing my opinion in hopes it can be useful. Please use it or not as you wish
And yes, to answer your final question - for this specific type of learning resource I do feel that perfect diction and enunciation is critical as it allows you to focus purely on contents of the sentence, rather than anything else.
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Hmm for that deck, the individual word sounds perfect, but the sentence example diction sounds worse . It doesnāt sound correct as far as diction, it just sounds more emotive like a tv drama. Is that what you mean you want?
Edit- Maybe I would understand better if you sent me an example sentence of Harunas that you thought had bad diction? That way I can see what you mean. As for our reference, we are using the same type of speech they use in ę°å®å Øćć¹ćæć¼ćThe textbooks that most closely follow the conversation style of the JLPT.
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I totally agree with this too!!
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What is perfect diction? Do you mean a TV voice? (like a newscaster?) I am struggling to figure out what you want. A japanese voice, or a tv accent. The guy in the anki deck has a very different speech pattern to Tokyo, so he doesnāt even pronounce some syllables. 
Edit- I agree it is super important too. But I canāt find one that isnāt like that on Bunpro, so please link me one so I know what to watch out for 
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I finished around 2k sentences of the iKnow 6k deck (which the linked deck is a part of) and the voice actors are really phenomenal. The emotions put in every sentence are a huge help to recall those sentences and words later in conversations.
But the expressive style used for the iKnow sentences would maybe not fit a grammar tool like Bunpro. Iād maybe prefer a clear and calm intonation. I personally donāt like the comic voice of the former Bunpro voice actress so I always turned audio off. The new material sounds good to me, even though it is maybe a little bit too plain and could be slightly more expressive.
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Good feedback! I will try and find a middle ground where it isnāt too expressive
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For me it is in line with what the previous users have shared.
This is a grammar site which is all about getting that knowledge and practice drummed into the mind as easily and as effortlessly as possible without obstacle ā¦ so a voice that is well enunciated and expressive should not make the user struggle for the content any more than is necessary.
For me pronunciation is not nearly as important and enunciation for content building.
Enunciation and Expression --> Content in
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Haruna and @Asher, thank you very much for providing new audio for this site!
For me personally, audio is very, very important. Earlier, absence of audio for many N5-N4 sentences and total absence of audio for N3+ levels was the major showstopper for me. I was not sure if I ever wanted to go beyond N4 here on Bunpro. The news that new audio was being added gave me an enormous extra motivation.
Thank you and please, keep up the good work!
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Got it, just wasnāt sure what you guys wanted extra from an enunciation perspective. But more expression I can definitely understand. We shall do our best
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Let me just add that I am super appreciative to both Haruna and you for your sweet efforts, voice and receptivity to improve upon the good work you have already done for us all 
Edit: And a special request to complete the audio for the latter half of N3 and N2 before going back to āperfectā what has already been done please.
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@Asher well, itās not so much expressiveness but rather clarity
You are probably right, that TV drama speech you mentioned is probably a bit excessive there. But aside from that itās very easy to understand what is being said.
- clear pronunciation of each individual sound in the sentence without reduction or fusion (linguistic terms)
- correct volume for different parts of the sentence (with no individual part going beyond the volume corridor, while also ensuring that speech is not monotone)
- correct use of pacing to better express different parts of the sentence (e.g. slowing and giving a bit more focus for particles to separate different parts of the sentence)
- adding spacing in lists to easier understand it as so
- slowing down significantly when expressing time, dates, days of the week or month, numbers and other structures that are not fixed words and require interpretation in your head, since parsing such thing at natural speed is quite hard for learners, even those who might be quite far already
- absence of any pronunciation artifacts
etc. basically just having good diction and expressive voice. If itās easy to listen to - itās good
And again, thanks for doing it!
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Just record everything at a noisy festival probaly drunkā¦ if you can understand that you are ready to go
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