Grammar in the Wild - Phase 2!

[severian]

@EdBunpro

I’d be interested to hear from people who didn’t participate for whatever reason - were there too many points above N5/N4 and they didn’t feel comfortable attempting?

For me, it’s not an issue of difficulty - I’ve not struggled too much with any of them so far. I just have that mental roadblock of “Oh my god, what if I post and I’m stupid”, which is completely unfounded because I’ll read everyone else’s replies and people translated it the same way. Anxiety do be like that though.

Oh, and usually because I read through and do them in my downtime at work, and my laptop at school is running an IE so old that the forums ask me to update so I can even log in

Though I’ve been quiet and haven’t been joining in, I would like to say I really do enjoy this feature!

[EdBunpro]

That mindset is 10000000% understandable! All I can say is that even if you get something 90% wrong, there’s not going to be anyone in there looking down on your attempts. I’ve royally butchered some guesses but I’ve realized said failure and asked others to help guide me in the right direction. It’s beyond awesome having others helping you out with sincerity instead of someone helping but coming off like they’ve got better things to do.

Even if you do them to yourself it’s still great practice and that’s all that matters!

[severian]

@EdBunpro

It’s beyond awesome having others helping you out with sincerity instead of someone helping but coming off like they’ve got better things to do.

This is honestly what I like best about the Bunpro community, to be honest! Everyone tends to be super helpful and understanding, which isn’t super common in language learning circles. Not to blow our own trumpets, but

[Asher]

Though you have been quiet, please feel free to give us feedback about it in the same way anyone else would! I understand the anxiety hahaha, I will probably post something with a very glaring mistake sooner or later myself!

Glad to hear that you have been enjoying it though! It’s always fun to try stuff out in real life, especially if it is from a resource we wouldn’t personally use regularly!

@severian

This is honestly what I like best about the Bunpro community, to be honest! Everyone tends to be super helpful and understanding, which isn’t super common in language learning circles. Not to blow our own trumpets, but

It pretty awesome right! I hope more people start participating soon! We are really lucky to have a great community that is super ready to help anyone at any level!

[distantflower]

I really understand how you feel and was pretty much doing the same thing (with excuses of procrastination) until Asher pressured me to join, lol. And true to form and my level, of course I made mistakes when I tried but once I’ve passed the initial feeling of extreme embarrassment, it has that oddly freeing relief. Felt that after doing my second attempt.

What helps with knowing my character is that as long I don’t give myself too much pressure, like participating only once a week or trying when I saw sentences that I understood more than the others, I’ll be able to at least give myself a nudge to do translation.

Now that I have participated, it made me notice even more of people’s different ways of translating and that’s totally fine in my opinion. Reminded me of the times when reading English subtitles and thinking, “That’s not really what they mean in Japanese” but understanding that a lot of times they were trying to hit the closest nuance in short dialogue time slots and other constraints.

So I could see my translations as robotic and direct for now, but I know over time it will improve since I’m still a beginner. Plus, I’m using my procrastination habit when doing most of the Grammar in the Wild translations too, so it’s a win-win situation for me

[Asher]

@distantflower

Now that I have participated, it made me notice even more of people’s different ways of translating and that’s totally fine in my opinion.

We also think this is one of the best things! In translation, there really is no 100% correct answer, and a ‘correct’ answer could potentially be written 50 different ways.

Unfortunately we only have one translation for each sentence on the site, but we also think that it is important for people to recognize that learning a language is based on your understanding of what you’re reading in the target language, not your ability to translate it in the exact same way as another person.

[Flavyouu]

How/where do I join?

[HotAirGun]

@severian

I just have that mental roadblock of “Oh my god, what if I post and I’m stupid”

It’s kinda the same for me, but “what if I post and it’s completely unreadable garbage”, because English isn’t my native language. So I have to check everything I write with context.reverso.net or something

@Flavyouu here

[Asher]

Hi @Flavyouu ! It would be great to have you join in! You can find the thread for the daily posts here.

GrammarInTheWild - Daily Discussion

September 16th Translation [まず 東急リバブル (Answer)] Notes : For the names of places or businesses (especially when they are in Kanji), sometimes it can be very difficult to mentally try to translate what the meaning is. Just like in English, quite often there is no particular meaning in a name, and it may not even be a real word. In those cases it is often best just to go with the most common reading of the kanji and hope for the best! (Quite often this is exactly what natives will do)

We will always post the answer to the translation on the following day, so be sure to check back and see how your translations compare with the team here

[blacktide]

@EdBunpro

Yomichan has spoiled me, I know what you mean. If you’re on windows I would recommend the program Capture2Text - takes 5 seconds to capture the on screen text and then copy paste that into jisho or ichi.moe

@gyroninja KanjiTomo is another great option. I actually used Capture2Text but I found that KanjiTomo was much more accurate for some reason. Capture2Text constantly either didn’t capture entire words or guessed the kanji incorrectly.

I do something similar to you though - I just type out the phrase from the GrammarInTheWild post and mouse over words I don’t know using Rikaikun. I like Yomichan as well but for some reason I can’t bring myself to switch to it after using Rikaikun for years.

@Asher I really like how you add the entire text for the 翻訳放題 posts like this one. I don’t mind typing them out, but it would certainly be helpful to have the text available under the shorter posts too (I understand this is time consuming though so no pressure!).

[HotAirGun]

@blacktide

it would certaintly be helpful to have the text available under the shorter posts too

It will be helpful for the speed of translation indeed, but will it be helpful for your long-term memory?
For me, when I type something, I need to pronounce it in my head, and also to look carefully at the kanji I read and type. I don’t feel like I study something when I just can hover over words.

[blacktide]

I mostly meant to make it more accessible for the others having trouble looking up difficult words from the image, but otherwise I completely agree! I do prefer to type it out myself – it’s easy to get in the habit of using Rikaikun/Yomichan as a crutch so I think typing it out helps solidify the words instead of just glossing over them and reading the translation.

[Asher]

Hey Guys!

Time to announce the winners for October ‘and’ November for grammar in the wild! It was really tough this time, and originally we were going to do a separate post for each month. However, we decided to wait, and see what participants continued to do throughout November.

So, at long last, our winners of Translator of the month goes to @s1212z , and @HotAirGun for their 100% consistency since the first day we had grammar in the wild.

It was too difficult to choose one over the other, so we thought that making them joint winners for October and November would be the fairest. Thank you both for your consistent efforts, answering other participants questions, and regularly writing your own sentences as well! You will both be receiving your translator of the month badges, as well as your prizes. Please feel free to contact @Jake for more information regarding that, when you have decided what you would like

Speaking of badges!

Now that we have started to roll out the new badges that our design team has put so much effort into. We would like to also start rolling out the grammar in the wild badges to those who have been participating. In total, there are 3 categories of badges that are available, depending on how often you participate in GITW, and whether you win any of our monthly prizes. Let’s take a look.

Winner of Translator of the month

This badge will be awarded to participants who have won our monthly contest. It will not scale from bronze to platinum, and is a once off badge.

Consistent participation

This badge will scale from bronze to platinum, and will be rewarded based on frequency of participation. Basically (X) participations, in (Y) period of time. This (X) - (Y) frequency is something that we feel will be achievable by most people, and is not something unachievable by any means. We will be backdating these badges for people that have been participating so far, so please check your badges over the next few days for more information about what degree of participation is required for each rank.

Streaks!

For the hardcore, we also have the streak badge, which will be awarded based on translating streaks. There are a few different ways to qualify for a streak, and they are listed as follows. You will need to post at least once a day (possible exceptions can be made by our streak saving Gods for extenuating circumstances). However, the content of your post is a lot more flexible. To get a ‘tick’ in your streak, you can either-

• Answer another user’s question
• Attempt the daily translation
• Attempt to use the grammar point in a unique sentence yourself
• Ask a question that starts a conversation

So it is a lot more flexible than just ‘translating’ every day. We hope that you guys enjoy going after these badges, and wish you all luck for the coming months as well!

[matt_in_mito]

Ohhhhh so I have to do weekends now too…
OK fine I’m on it

[s1212z]

I was late a couple times before the new posting recently, so I’m a big fraud but it couldn’t be helped…and I’ve done plenty of terrible translations too, ugh (even did one today). But thanks for the shout out and thank you for the BunPro team for putting together the daily translations, I really enjoy translating with everyone and the community learning. I’ll promote once again to encourage everyone to practice outputting daily sentences, it really helps to isolate a specific grammar point for the day, plus it is just as fun and helps with speaking.

[Asher]

We will definitely make allowances for being late etc. As that has also been our fault a few times due to inconsistent posting. Think of it as more of a 40 hour daily post timer, than a 24.

[jrmr50]

The times I’ve looked at the grammar in the wild threads, it’s been too hard for my N5/N4 lite powers. Would it be possible to mark them with anticipated difficulty, so I could skip to ones that might be discernible for us padawans…

[Asher]

Usually the box at the bottom of the page will have the N-level of the target grammar point written in it. Sometimes the actual sentences though could potentially be easier than that N-level, or harder than that N-level, based on what vocabulary is being used (or what other grammar points). If you are not sure about something, I would recommend trying to translate it in your head, and then maybe having a look at a few of the other translations. There is absolutely no penalty for being wrong when participating in GITW, and quite often, you are likely to get help from other users if you really miss something.

Due to that, I would recommend giving it a shot regardless, and using the N-level of the chosen grammar point as a rough indicator of how difficult it is. If you are not comfortable translating it, also feel free to ask questions about the vocabulary or grammar, as that will also count as participation.

[HotAirGun]

Wow! Thank you for the badge! GITW is a really fun and insightful activity, and I recommend everyone to participate it, despite one’s language level. The main point is that you’ll see the right answer every day, and you also can see people’s answers, so you can improve your Japanese understanding. It’s really insightful.
Thank you @Asher and @Jake for your great efforts!

[EdBunpro]

What’s tripping you up on the sentences - the vocab or the grammar itself? If it’s vocab, there’s nothing wrong with using yomichan and manually translating a bunch of words and then attempting the translation. I think I’m at around 4500 words or something in Anki atm and there’s been so many times I’ve seen words in N5 examples I’ve never mined before haha.

Obviously do whatever you’re comfortable with, but the thread really is filled with great people who are ready to help and explain everything!