This is true. I once talked to a girl who said to me: “would you please stop being too polite?” I replied to her saying that I thought using the です・ます was, for me, a way of not being a jackass. I realized since then that when I talked with a lot of japanese people, the majority of them only were that polite when meeting for the first time
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Yes, i’ve heard a similar story before, where a Japanese person actually considered it “rude” (for the foreigner) to continue the polite forms, because they thought they were already on a friendly level.
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How far along in Bunpro are you, if you don’t mind me asking? I ask not to laugh or say you’re stupid or anything lmao, but pretty early in the journey you will learn points that are specifically polite or casual, and clearly stated. Furthermore, sentences will have a [casual] or [polite] message at the top indicating which way you should be thinking. Finally, something I get wrong a lot LOL is making a sentence too casual, and Bunpro will literally tell me no, look at X/Y/Z in the sentence that says it’s formal, change your stuff now.
I think I’ve said this before, but these are all really good things to be thinking about but I really do believe once you keep chugging along you’ll start to (hopefully) answer some of your own questions. Not to say Bunpro can’t be improved or anything, but adding more tools to your arsenal of grammar is going to open up a lot of things really quickly. I think there’s a really good mix of formal/informal here, I’ve skimmed through friends’ Genki/etc. textbooks and man that is quite a way to speak hahaha, eventually they learn how to hone it down via absorbing nuances and contextual implications.
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I understand your wish, Ochamame, and it would be a great addition (though a lot of work), but I agree with Born2, you’ll learn all of this in Bunpro at some point, and besides polite/casual Bunpro also has extra hints for whether something is more common in writing or in speaking.
Until then, for the most part, the general politeness is as simple as seeing whether the sentence has Keigo or not (です/ます is also keigo, specifically teineigo), you’ll learn the more subtle differences later. If you wanted to, you could take all the keigo grammar points and add them to your reviews ahead of time. A lot of the even more humble/respectful grammar uses お as a prefix or special verbs like でございます for to be.
You could probably add this for sentences until mid-N3 or so, because after that you won’t need it anymore.
Also, if you just use です/ます, and people see you’re not perfect at Japanese yet, it should usually be fine, it’s polite enough.
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Just added the last MnN1 point to reviews. Went through MnN1 and 2 a couple years ago and still vaguely remember most grammar, but forgot a lot of the details, so let’s say my current level is about N4 (or maybe a very bad N3, idk lol). Also meaning sure, I can probably often gauge whether a sentence is formal or casual. (Certainly when it’s a case of です vs だ.) But not always, and probably usually not quite how casual/polite it is.
Of course once you learned everything you’ll understand everything, including politeness. That’s… obvious. But until then being made aware of the nuances you don’t yet understand would be great?
I’m the kind of person who doesn’t just learn by reading grammar rules, but also just by picking up stuff that I hear/read. Which presumably a lot of people do. Seeing you mention “absorbing nuances and contextual implications.” That’s exactly what I’m looking for. Can’t understand nuances about context when there is no context given.
Of course instead of a simple “rude” tag all the sentences could also be rewritten to describe the context. “‘Come here!’ the man shouted angrily.” But that would probably be even more effort haha.
Having a note on the tone of a certain grammar in its explanation is great, but seeing it over and over in example sentences helps solidify that connection even more. And again, there may be sentences that could grammatically be used with various people but maybe have a word in them that colours them more polite/casual.
Maybe those tone tags could be 1. optional, and 2. only be revealed after answering, in case they’re too much of a hint/to make you think yourself.
@Saimin I’m less concerned about not knowing all the Keigo yet, sorry if I phrased that unclear. It’s more those subtle differences that go beyond です/ます vs だ/る.
I use the same basic grammar level of politeness with everybody at work, colleagues at my own ‘level’, young trainees, shift leaders and up to the head of department. But beyond which second person pronoun to use there’s still a LOT of subtle differences, most of which I probably couldn’t even consciously point out (cause who thinks about their own language that much haha). And seeing Japanese culture/language seems to have a lot more emphasis on social hierarchy than German culture/language I’d presume it’d be similar there.
Ofc I could pull the baka gaijin card, but yanno, I’d rather try and not end up accidentally being rude to people one way or the other in the first place 
Funny story, caution strong language:
Went out with a group of international students for drinks. One of the non-native English speakers called another guy a cµnt cause he ordered a weak drink. Which, sure, technically the same meaning as pµssy, but slightly different usage eh. Nuances matter lol. Even if this one is offensive either way, but I guess one more/differently than the other.
(Idk if rude language is allowed here? Lemme know if not.)
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@Shuffleblast I think that’s my fault, sorry. I reported that behavior as a bug…It might functionally be easier to click a single toggle, but right now visually it looks like there are 2 distinct buttons to push, not a single toggle.
While we’re piling on the tabs, does anyone else think the background of the Hourly | Daily should be the same shade of blue as the tabs above for Paths | Reviews? I never paid much attention up until now, but the light blue with white font is a little hard to read. That said, I like the two tabs myself. It isn’t like they change positions when you click them lmao and it always defaults to Hourly
[Feature Request]
For grammar points that could reasonably be confused with others, it would be nice that if you answered with the other, incorrect grammar point that the after-answer review state would recognize that, and let you look at both grammar points - the correct one and the related one that you answered with, so you could see how they differ and gain a better understanding of which to use and when.
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I kinda miss the progress bar around my avatar in the Bunpro header. 
For me it was a quick and convenient way to check current progress.
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I just came back from a week long break from studying and it feels like the answers are more strict…? When I used to miss a particle it would just warn me. Now it is marked wrong. I could have sworn it was different before… ? Not complaining though. I prefer it this way in the end.
I noticed this earlier, I think there’s a point like halfway through N4 (?) where it stops warning you about adding a particle and just says you’re wrong. More often than not I just undo it and re-enter with the particle. Maybe a dev has the right answer, but there are times I feel the same thing as you and wonder where it stopped drawing the line.
I kind of wish it was strict from the beginning… i feel like it was helping me too much and I was getting overconfident with 90%+ scores. Now I’m barely able to move forward. My week long break only added more to the problem and now I’m getting around 50% per session. Lol…
Hmm, I’d recommend doing a cram session of the certain points involving particles and really analyze what’s going on in the sentence (what type of adjective is being used, etc.) I think a refresher in the mindset will help you out a ton, especially after a break. If there’s anything in particular with particles that’s confusing you though feel free to ask and people here will help ya out!
Love the new dashboard, especially with the icons showing how many you have at each SRS level.
It would be particularly useful to be able to click on these and have it bring up a list of the grammar points in question - especially 0 to 1, because those are usually the ones I miss repeatedly.
Thanks!!
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Thanks for your guys’ hard work! I’ve been studying the N1 grammar points, and I feel like I’ve gotten a lot out of the audio recordings for Lessons 1-6.
I noticed that Lessons 7-10 don’t currently have audio. Do you guys have an estimate for when it might be finished?
Don’t mean to rush or anything, but for the purpose of studying for N1 in December 2021 I want to know whether I should just pause learning new grammar until the Lesson 7-10 audio comes out or just keep going without audio. If the wait isn’t too long, I would like to wait for the audio because I find it much more effective for learning.
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Most of it is already recorded! Just gotta edit it and upload it 
I would say everything (for N1) should be up within 2 weeks maximum
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Wow, that is really great news! I’m really excited for it. I’ll sit tight for the time being then. Thanks for your guys’ continued efforts!
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In the Reading Practice section, would be it possible to number the lines (with the same numbering for a Japanese and its English translation)? This would make easier to compare the original text and its translation.
Great work, though!
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