Bunpro Audio... Evolved! (Major Update Jan-07-2025)

Bunpro
#61

It’s great to hear that these are real voice recordings! I will say that I had a bit of a hard time telling since the audio quality is so high, the voice is so pristine, and the reading seems to usually be done very rapidly, without any pauses.

I understand why a lot of that may be desirable for learning purposes, but I also wonder if leaving in some imperfections (natural pausing, etc) might be better to exemplify how natural Japanese is actually spoken? Just an idea, from an appreciative user.

5 Likes
#62

There’s definitely a bridge to gap between “textbook audio” and natural spoken language, I wonder how it could fit in a learning app like this !

2 Likes
#63

Any idea when this can be done for the N4/N3 vocab decks?

Totally understand that this will take some time to get done. Just wondered about this while doing vocab reviews today.

2 Likes
#64

As we will be starting from N5, it could take some time before these vocab decks become available. I would like to say as soon as possible, but until we get the average recording time information per vocab point from the voice actors, it is really hard to give an estimate. I would like to say that having at least the first few N levels done within 2025 would be our ideal goal though! It is a lot of content.

6 Likes
#65

Totally understood about the amount of work that needs to be done. Thank you for the rough timeline.

2 Likes
#66

I’ve been wondering if anyone noticed long pauses in some sentences.

For example in 〜に〜ない (JLPT N1) | Bunpro :

彼はどうして学校に（paaause）戻ろうとしないのかな？

I’m not sure if this is the old audio or the new audio, but nevertheless curious if the pause is intended.

2 Likes
#67

This one just sounds a little bit dramatic to me like the voice actress was trying to emphasize each part of it. I will ask her personally and see what she says!

Good catch though, I haven’t actually noticed any others like this!

2 Likes
#69

Yeah, I felt the same. Perhaps it’s done to make it seem as if the speaker is talking with someone and is giving careful thought before broaching the subject (the person in question not wanting to go back to school). The VA would certainly have imagined some scenario where a pause like that would make sense. But it might seem odd sometimes I guess, as the example sentences can offer only limited context, so there may be several possibilities as to how one could voice the sentences.

1 Like
#70

so…who are they :eyes:

1 Like
#71

That certainly makes sense.

I just feel that for me, in the context of doing reviews, pauses feel excessive in quite a few new voiceovers (maybe 30-50% of them). It feels like hitting a roadblock and spinning your wheels waiting for the sentence to continue.

Here is another example of what I personally feel is excessive in the total length of pausing: を余儀なくさせる (JLPT N1) | Bunpro

７０年代の (pause) エネルギー危機は (pause) 政府にガソリン以外の (pause) 代替エネルギーを探すことを (pause) 余儀なくさせた。

Is it perhaps an idea in the future to adjust the pace to N level? N4 and below could be a bit more slow, deliberate and dramatic, and N3 and above more natural speed.

2 Likes
#72

I’d find it surprisingly if Japanese voice actors were inserting unnatural pause lengths into sentences. Probably they’re doing readings based more on character dialogue pacing for anime/tv perhaps. But I don’t tend to find the pacing on screen to be slowed down or exaggerated? Maybe the lack of visual cues is emphasising this. I have noticed there are more pauses in N3 & N2 than previously, but also more expressiveness and generally more natural seeming feeling overall so I figure it’s just a part of that

2 Likes
#73

Still waiting for Haru’s voice download files… Can be unorganized, raw, whatever. :pray:

3 Likes
#74

Oh my goodness everyone… Have you heard how cute the voice actress sounds in 命令形 (JLPT N4) | Bunpro? My heart skips a beat with every example sentence♥ I want to keep repeating this lesson every day.

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#75

Is it possible to change a bit the way audio playback works for the reading passages? The voice actor does a good job at differentiating the speakers involved in the passage by changing the way she sounds. But the text has “speaker A”, “speaker B” all over. So if I want to listen to the entire reading passage (e.g.《ピアノレッスン》passage here), half of the audio is just repetition of “A”… “B”… “A”… “B”… It would flow much better and be more enjoyable if we could skip this speaker description. Especially since we can already easily identify who is speaking by following along with the text.

Maybe completely removing the “A”, “B”, from the playback is not worth it since they are necessary if someone wants to listen without looking at the text. But it would be great to have a playback option that skips that completely for a more natural flow.

6 Likes
#76

I appreciate the options on the audio, but I do get annoyed when I have to wait 1/2 seconds for the audio to start after I click the play button. I’m trying to move through bunpro as efficiently as possible, and those seconds add up when I’m doing 100 or more lessons a day. Thank you.

1 Like
#77

Hi there!
Do you have an example audio point?
Will try to see if they are the audio files, or if there is more we can do to preload the audio files better before playing them

1 Like
#78

if there is more we can do to preload the audio files better

I thought Bunpro already preloads audio the moment you enter the review page?
The browser’s console logs are full of “Prefetching audio”.

Anyways, I want to say that I really appreciate the fact that Bunpro preloads audio. WaniKani doesn’t do it…

1 Like
#79

They are/should be. :sweat_smile:

But I checked some of the audio files and they didn’t seem suuuuuper long at the start so thought I’d try figure out what we could do.

1 Like
#80

Hi veritas_nz,

Thanks for asking. Yes, I have one example that I just ran into. I don’t know how to link it, but the sentence/problem/lesson is “残っているジュースは十本以下だ。”