Grammar in the Wild - Phase 2!

Bunpro
#21

Will likely archive all my own sentences, ask a native to double check, and have that as my archive or make a deck. I usually lock in grammar best on a favorite sentence and the memory is even better if I produce it myself, successfully that is…then there are all sorts of degrees of freedom that can happen.

For the daily challenges, the manga is out of context and sometimes I’m not sure who is saying what to whom or what the scenario is unless you know the manga already, that is helpful and can change the nuance. So sometimes would be great to get pre/post text that is surrounding the sentence in question …I understand why they can’t post the whole panel w/ pictures without permission. The signs are usually solid but there is usually an environment that surrounds the sign to help out, so extra challenge, haha. But would be nice to have flip cards to practice with the nice graphics, either as a personal deck or native to the site since it’s their intellectual property. They are a good memory device since we discuss in depth so nice to look back on for reference and really lock in the grammar point we all already practiced!

Anyways, it must take effort to put together each daily challenge together, find a sentence, have pretty graphics put together so thank you for the BP team for organizing so we can practice daily. Plus it’s fun to do as a community and discuss as such. Much appreciated! :blush:

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#22

Meep! I’ll try once a week at least starting next week, so I won’t have extra guilt from procrastinating my Japanese homework nearing to the weekend class :sweat_smile: But I know it’s part of Japanese learning so I should not feel bad. Really appreciate the encouragement!

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#23

We have them all archived, and will possibly make them available at some point for download or something similar. There is no specific plan for that yet, but I would say that it will definitely happen at some point!

In regard to the massive amount of sentences, we also 100% see the vaule in that, and are currently working on something that should scratch that itch perfectly! (watch this space) :wink:

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#24

Thinking about how GitW has only been around a few weeks/months and we’re already up to ~600 posts… Have you thought about breaking up the thread every now and then? Maybe start a new GitW thread with each season? That way it stays fresh, gives new people a kinda clean slate to jump in on, and you don’t end up with a thread that has an unwieldy amount of posts. (I don’t know about others, but I like to read through old threads start-to-finish.)

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#25

Good point, we are already well into the month, but starting next month I will do them monthly.

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#26

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 :sweat_smile:

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

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#27

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! :smiley:

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#28

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 :trumpet:

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#29

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! :rofl:

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!

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!

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#30

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 :laughing:

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#31

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. :partying_face:

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#32

How/where do I join?

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#33

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 :sweat_smile:

@Flavyouu here

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#34

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

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 :slight_smile:

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#35

@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. :sweat_smile:

@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!).

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#36

It will be helpful for the speed of translation indeed, but will it be helpful for your long-term memory? :slight_smile:
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.

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#37

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.

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#38

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 :partying_face:

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
06---Platinum-Translator

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
07---Bronze-Consistency

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!
01---Bronze-Grammar-in-the-Wild

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!

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GrammarInTheWild - December 2021
#39

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

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#40

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.

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