Most of the time yes, but there are times when I want to find a grammar point to suit what I am trying to say (particularly for one that I haven’t yet learnt).
The default layout of arranging grammar by JLPT level is perfectly fine for most cases, optimised for learning but not necessarily for reference.
Yep…having general tags or a little category table is definitely high priority! I know I’ve mentioned couple times before as well, but that was wity respect to casual, sonkeigo, teineigo, etc…
meta-categories could be like #grammar-type [part of speech like your examples], #primary-context
But either way, I don’t think you and I are alone in wanting to do a search like:
#conversational-speech #conjunctions #N5, or maybe even with the shorter japanese equivalents like 話し言葉 or something. And then they would be listed in a little box below after clicking on the search bar that would list the tags so you could just click on them, to avoid having to type out all the tags (especially useful for mobile…)!
…and then after that, custom tags would be really nice…say, you have grammar points you are always messing up in conversation, and a user could add a custom tag like #my-convo-weakpoints or something
Will there be a way to truly go J-J on this site? While this tool is useful, with the way the site was designed we need to rely on english to some extent to answer the questions. I truly want J-J to be an option.
The problem with the current search I’ve found, is I have to remember the grammar and the specific type of phrase, which is not always possible.
Especially when say, writing some online posts on the computer in Japanese. In those cases, I often can’t remember what sort of grammar I could use, so I want to be able to look up say, grammar that can be used to make predictions and would be appropriate in formal (written writing) [e.g. #used-in-writing #predictive]
As it is now, it’s just trial and error on either google or bunpro, and takes a long time to do such queries, as in a couple of minutes or more. Whereas with tags, even in cases where we don’t know enough information to find the exact one instantly, we could drastically reduce the search space and time needed to find somethings that would satisfy what we are looking for.
TLDR; the current search assumes that either we know a subset of the japanese grammar text, or its corresponding english phrase - or the specific JLPT level + sublevel. That is not sufficient to cover any use cases where we either forgot or don’t know any of the aforementioned criteria.
Yeah, especially for the N2 / N1 levels. Maybe something like the way Nihongo-no-mori does it, perhaps?
That makes sense. I’m mostly consuming Japanese, not producing it, so it’s less of an issue for me. But I can definitely see that the search can be improved for that use case.
I need a “super like” for this post 
I used to think that could never happen, but it actually could, couldn’t it? The translated English could just be replaced with monolingual hints. That would be really cool.
I think notes is long overdue for an overhaul. Right now they are basically useless because it only shows a few words before putting .... It would be much better to move the notes to its own section of each grammar point or to the bottom of the Meaning tab. Then at least it could be more prominent without distracting from other content.
Just citing myself again, I’d definitely use this so much, especially to hammer down some pesky topics like 他 >.<
@Pushindawood On the “your feedback” page, the sentences shown use the current version of the grammar. Because of this it’s impossible to compare to how the sentence was when you reported an issue, which is not ideal. If it’s reasonable, can you have this take a snapshot of the sentence as it was when you submitted the feedback?
Also, can we get notified when you respond to the feedback on the site? I had no idea you’d been responding to mine.
Since we have user levels are there any plans to have user rankings? So you can see something like a leaderboard to see who the highest level users are. I think it could add an element of competition to motivate people to do their reviews and ascend through the ranks. When I saw there was a definite level cap and that you could see how many people are at a certain level through the forums it motivated me.
To break ties among users of the same level I’d imagine you could order by their current EXP on their level.
You could also include something on the user page like “You are rank #1000 (Top X%)!”
Personally, I hope not, because that would take the game-ification too far IMO. After all, the true goal here is to drill the grammar until we’re comfortable with it all. I don’t think it’s worth tempting people into cheating, or into fooling themselves that they actually did know this or that, etc., especially since it’s so easy to guess, see the correct answer, then retype said answer.
I agree. I think a leaderboard would be a huge mistake.
That’s a good point. You can’t necessarily trust users to maintain their academic integrity with a system like that. It was just my instinct from MMOs. I can settle for manually checking how many people are in each level from time to time x)
I support a healthy amount of gamification but I think users should be encourage to compare themselves with who they were yesterday as opposed to other people from different abilities and backgrounds.
I feel like I always get the “can’t help but” reviews wrong because there’s ～てならない・～てたまらない・せずにはいられない・～てしかたがない・～てしょうがない. I might also be forgetting something in addition to these…
Maybe these reviews could have answer blanks with [成る]・[堪る]・[居る]・[仕方・仕様]?
(Or just [なる]・[たまる]・[いる]・[しかた・しょう])
I don’t want these grammar points to just accept all alternative answers, because then a user will likely get comfortable with only 1 or 2 expressions and use them exclusively for all these reviews.
I have trouble with the same questions. They are very similar and I get them wrong over and over again.
I personally like the idea of leaderboards, and if we’re actually worried about people cheating and - clutch your pearls - diminishing the quality of their Bunpro education, then just make the leaderboards measure stuff that can’t be cheated. Who has the longest daily streak? Who has the most avg reviews per day, including/excluding cram (maybe measured without “oops” button presses)? Who crams the most extra reviews?
But, really, I just want to know who has the longest daily streak. Whoever it is, I’m coming for you.
There are several leaderboard scripts on WK and they appeared to be warmly received. Never used them (nor have an interest) but looks like users are personalizing them with their friends as a motivational tool. Whether people abuse it just to be “winning” the leaderboard, I have no idea. IMO there are several other ways to add fun into BP to help with the grind or get more users involved.
Can you add a button for hiding known grammar on the Path book pages?