Bunpro Audio - January 26, 2021 Update!

[Asher]

As I said, the click is a physical click from the microphone, it is impossible to record them without that sound, as that sound is the recording being stopped.

As for the male recordings, again this is one for the creators, but how will exactly the same recording in a male voice help you? Unless you plan on imitating someones voice. The only way you will develop male speech patterns is if you primarily hang out with men. Do you have Japanese male friends that you regulalry socialize with? This will help you much more than a male voice on BP will.

These recordings are just my partner, and we are doing it free of charge, finding a male voice actor and having them record thousands of sentences would cost a small fortune (I would assume). What you are asking for would be great, but from a grammar perspective it isn’t useful, watching tv in Japanese or watching netflix in Japanese will be. It sounds like you need to watch something like Terrace House etc which has everyday speech.

(edit)- please do not take this as me being rude. I see where you are coming from 100%. It’s just that since living in Japan I have met countless people that say they have been studying Japanese for years and years and always think there is a special something that will give them the edge they need to finally break through barriers. My friend, you are the edge you need. If you truly wish to sound more masculine I can send you list of Japanese male youtubers that will help you, just swing me a message.

[kenttran]

I have to say Asher you have one hell of a partner who spent all that time to help you with your learning. Meanwhile, mine refuses to speak to me in Japanese until my Japanese is good

I’m an very envious!!

I still cant comprehend how much time you guys would have spent on this thing!

[Asher]

Hahah, yeah I am a lucky sob! But it is give and take. I record English fairytales for her, because she really struggles with understanding the old fashioned English that you would find in the Brothers Grimm fairytales etc.
Very time consuming, but hey, we’re both in lockdown, so what else is there to do

[AlliCrabi]

Thanks for taking that time to reply Asher.
Not rude at all, I understand all that you have shared as well.
I had no idea that Haruna and you were doing this for BunPro for free … that’s very kind of the both of you and your condition on the downloads for the users a very helpful move for everyone also … thank you!
Likewise, I am thinking more of the users than myself here as I have Japanese sons and family, male friends I hand to with etc, your recommendations are clearly the best for those who have access to male voices; unfortunately most of the users here do not have the luxury of living in Japan with access to male voices like you and I do, so this is where I was coming from.
Shadow speaking from the hara the male voice in WaniKani has really made a difference and with all the sentences that are practiced each day in BunPro there’s an opportunity to go much further let’s just say that.
I consider BunPro a very professional product and a product which I am grateful for as it has personally helped me breakthrough a language barrier that I’ve had for well decades (shame I know) so credit to everyone where due; have you therefore considered using a professional recording device that doesn’t have a mechanical switch which contaminates the recordings?
As for the recordings themselves, sweet, love your voice Haruna, thanks to you both for doing this.

[AlliCrabi]

I have just read the following from the developers:

Pushindawood

@Asher Thank you for your post. And thank you @s1212z, @Jet, @Johnathan-Weir, @Litharrale, and @alyr_arkhon for your input.

Are you guys planning on ever actually adding any audio?

The simple answer is: “Yes,” however, it is a little more complicated than that. While we have native Japanese support on the team, we are not equipped to record, mix or edit professional quality audio in house. We outsourced the first batch of audio and fully intended to continue working with the voice actress that we eventually settled on. However, we quickly realized that this would be easier said than done when we found sentences that needed to be rewritten either because they contained mistakes, we used grammar that was too advanced, or we thought that the grammar point could be better understood in a different context. Each rewritten sentence needed to have its audio replaced, which would sometimes lead to differences in audio levels and mix quality.

In addition to having sentences recorded again, we are still adding new grammar points and separating existing structures into more digestible chunks. New grammar/updated grammar is often placed between grammar points that already have audio, creating some gaps in content. As @Kuromaku and @conan alluded to, we thought that it would be better to wait until we had polished existing content thoroughly and had the majority of the content we wanted to add made available before we had new audio recorded.

That being said, we realize that continuing to push back the release of new audio for the sake of uniformity/quality may not be the best solution and that it can be detrimental to the way many people learn Japanese. We think that it is amazing that your partner recorded audio for Bunpro sentences and we would love to work with you both! We will be sending you a PM soon regarding the use of the audio on Bunpro and how best to credit to your partner for her hard work. Cheers!

@Pushindawood
So these non-professional recordings (which were made by a user and his partner for personal use) are a stop-gap measure until you have completed your in-house professional recordings with a professional voice actor?

[Pushindawood]

@AlliCrabi Haruna and @Asher have also offered to replace the first batch of audio with newly recorded media. We intend to use the audio provided by @Asher and Haruna for the foreseeable future. Cheers!

[Asher]

Considering how ridiculously cheap BP is compared to pretty much every other paid service, they may not even have the budget for what you are suggesting. (I don’t actually know though). People worldwide have access to youtube. I will create a list of people I recommend and post it later. That way you will have enough content for years of listening at no cost. No matter your location.

[severian]

Thank you so so much to @Asher and Haruna! What an amazing thing to do, especially for free.

As for the click, I personally can’t hear it, so… being hard of hearing has its perks!

[Asher]

You may not be able to hear it because I actually edited all of them and got rid of the click. I also edited the volume so that it should be the same as all other audio, meaning it will play in reviews (if not now, then soon, I have not personally checked). While the click didnt bother me, I can understand that it may have given some people a bit of irritation

@AlliCrabi I will upload all future audio without the click But because I am doing so many files, it’s open to error (as I have to do them individually and it’s easy to accidentally overlook one). If you hear a click on any feel free to notify me! Hope it’s better for you now

[AlliCrabi]

Nice work @Asher … it’s good that you were able to fix this, thank you for taking action on my request.
Now as I’m about halfway through N3 it’s my hope the recordings will catch up and overtake me so I can make use of them whilst actually studying the grammar points the first time around. Sheesh, so demanding hey

[AlliCrabi]

Just noticed that you said that you are doing these individually … sorry about that … diamond effort!!
Thanks again!

[Asher]

No problem, we will be releasing them in batches, so all going well we can catch up to and overtake you

[andrey1267]

@BunproAdmin, @Pushindawood

I have a feeling that the work of adding the new audio from Haruna and @Asher to the site that started around 2 weeks ago, has been recently stopped/paused. I wonder what the reason for this is? Is it because of those clicks that have been discussed here?

I’d say that having any audio (even if it’s not 100% perfect) is 10 times better than having no audio at all. And the audio from Haruna is actually very good. Well, IMHO. I’ve seen some criticism in the earlier posts in this thread, but I fail to understand what those people are unhappy about…

I actually have two requests:

1. Please don’t forget about those lessons on the N5, N4 levels which currently don’t have any audio. I’d say best of all the work of adding new audio should be split equally between adding new audio to the N3+ levels and to the N5-N4 levels where there is no audio.

2. Please don’t wait with enabling the new audio in the review sessions. I’ve read about some volume leveling problems, but I’d say that having audio with different volume levels is still much better than having no audio at all.

Thank you.

[Asher]

Hey there Andrey, the reason it has paused is because Haruna and I have not actually seen eachother since then! Tokyo (and more recently all of Japan) is now in lockdown so they are majorly discouraging anyone from using trains unless they absolutely have to for work. This lockdown is expected to end May 5th. At which point we will proceed as quickly as possible.

The clicking sound issue is not too hard to remove, so that will not cause any setbacks. As for your other concerns, we will be re-recording all of N5 and N4 (as they are not huge it shouldn’t take too long). After may 5th and the Tokyo lockdown is over, we ‘intend’ to do roughly 50 grammar points per week until it is finished (that is about 600 sentences). Well somewhere between 50 and 70.

In regard to the audio balancing issue, don’t worry about that either, I have figured out a fix that should make everything play at the same level. Sorry for the ‘short’ delay, unfortunately unavoidable.

[andrey1267]

Hi Asher, thank you for the reply. I understand the situation. In that case, I’ll be looking forward to the time when you can resume adding audio.

As for re-recording the N5-N4 audio. If I may express my humble opinion, I’d say please fill the gaps in these levels first, before you re-record everything. There are dozens of lessons there that don’t have audio at all. (I’m at the end of N5 now, but I looked ahead and saw that N4 has even more lessons with missing audio. Knowing that now the new audio will eventually be added, I even started to skip lessons with no audio, planning to return to them later…)

I’d say, personally I won’t even mind if the old audio is kept as it is. Haruna’s voice is very pleasant indeed but I also like the voice of the previous voice artist. And I think the variety is good. Well, I know some users of Bunpro have a different opinion. So if you decide to re-record everything, that’s OK with me too.

And thank you again for starting this hard work!

[Asher]

We will be re-recording everything just for consistency, but if the developers want to add the option of ‘choosing’ a voice, I am totally ok with that too. But that may be difficult on their end, I have no idea of logistics. We intend to finish N3, then N2/N1 (as N1 is only very small at this point), after which we will probably record all of N5 in a week and then N4 over the next two. Don’t worry, whether we do the whole thing, or prioritize certain parts, it would take roughly the same time. This is due to N5 and N4 not being overly huge to start with, and we are doing big chunks at a time.

お疲れ様です😊

[AlliCrabi]

Perfect!!
こちらこそ、ありがとう。

[andrey1267]

Asher, OK, thank you.

[0_0]

Just wanted to say that I love the new voice that’s used for the beginning of N3! Definitely recommend switching her voice with the old one in N5 and N4 after you do N3, N2, N1!

So if you do 50/day, when the lockdown is over everything should be done in 2 weeks right?

[Asher]

Technically you are correct that if we do 50 a day we would be done in 2 weeks… But we have actual jobs that will not allow us to do this hahaha.
Although we are aiming at doing 50 a week, hopefully more. Regardless, It should all be finished relatively quickly.