Massive audio update … and other news!

Hey guys!

I have just updated over 150 grammar points with new audio, totalling just over 1400 sentences! These are all available now, and include the first 100 grammar points of N4, plus the first 50 grammar points of N1. My partner and I will finish N1 as soon as possible, as we know that there are quite a few users hoping to use these for exam practice this year.

Edit- All new (and old) audio can now be found here, and is freely available to download!
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12aGTqWDqlm9BNxOYQugo2WesTBMAEsYp?usp=sharing

NEW
Edit 2- I have added another 50 grammar points worth of audio! The first 100 grammar points of N1 are now available, and Haruna and I are on schedule to have all of N1 finished within the next 2 weeks. All of the new N1 files will be available on the google drive for download sometime tomorrow -7th/Aug-

As soon as we finish N1, we will finish N4, and then move to N5. For now, we are not 100% sure what to do about N5, as there are many grammar points with no audio, and it is all a bit あちこち. We will make a plan of action as soon as possible! :bowing_man:

Old info that most people know now.

The other news, I would like to take this opportunity to announce officially that I am now a part of the Bunpro team! :partying_face:
I would like to talk a little about my responsibilities, and things that I hope to contribute in the future. Firstly, I have taken on the position of ‘Content Lead - English’, this entails things like:

  • Making sure English sentences are easy to understand and match the Japanese.
  • Making sure all formatting is consistent, and easy to follow.
  • Translating new content and adding notes that users may find interesting or helpful.
  • Refining existing sentences and structure explanations, for ease of use.
  • Continuing to add audio to any new grammar points that we release!
  • Product development of a range of top-secret amazing upcoming features that I unfortunately cannot discuss yet. :shushing_face:
  • Researching new ways that Bunpro can become even better!

Lastly, but most importantly:

  • Interacting with you guys and helping wherever possible!

While my role covers many different things, I would like to assure you all that I will do my best to prioritize my work in a way that reflects what users most want to see at any given time!

Many of you may know that I have a pretty holistic view toward Japanese, and approach learning on a ‘deep meaning’ level, rather than A=B… :thinking:(apart from when A really does equal B!):thinking:. Please rest assured that my posts on the forum (which will continue), will not always reflect the views of the whole Bunpro team, and that my personal views are just personal views, and will not affect the way that Bunpro itself teaches Japanese. All of us at Bunpro want to give you factual information that will help you succeed, and it is important for me to separate what is conceptual (many of my posts), from what is factual.

Please feel free to contact me directly (or tag me in bug/fixes) at any time with things that you think need fixing (incorrect pronunciation of something in the audio, typos, etc.). I am more than happy to receive these messages and fix things straight away! I would also love to hear your ideas from time to time!

I am super excited to hopefully contribute toward your continued love of Japanese, and facilitate opportunities for all of us to learn more about this awesome language!
よろしくお願いいたします!

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Congratulations!

I find your post really heplful for my studies and maybe the members feel the same as me.

I am eager to see what will Bunpro team reveal on the future!

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This is great news for you and also for the rest of us. Looking forward to seeing your contributions to BunPro.

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Woo! Now we know who to harass with questions Congrats! This is going to be pretty exciting for all of us (and missing audio fixes are super awesome!)

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Congrats :partying_face: and thanks for all you guys do! Very excited for the N1 audio, the Text-To-Speech voices I use are fine and all, but I much prefer Haruna :star_struck:

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Congrats and thank you for the new audio! So helpful.

Will you be uploading to Google Drive again too?

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Yep, I will upload everything to the drive again! (Give me a day to make sure everything is perfect, my Google Drive has been a little thingy recently)

Thank you for all your well wishes everyone, I’ll do my best!

@ccookf So long as it is productive harassment, that is ok! haha.

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Awesome!!! Such good news, congratulations!

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Amazing! Thank you again.

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@Asher さん、おめでとうございます !

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Ooh very exciting! Congratulations :smiley: Thank you for all your hard work ^^

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Wow! I jumped into my reviews today and was like “Hey! That’s new!”. The new audio is really going to help with internalizing each of the grammar points. And any clarification work just makes everything better. (I can’t wait to hear about the top-secret features!)
Congrats!

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It definitely helps with internalizing things! I found the same when I was first going through lots of the grammar. I had a very hard time remembering ones without audio :rofl:

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Congrats!!! :partying_face: That’s amazing news. Really happy for you!

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Congratulations!! It’s good to see you now officially part of the team! :tada:

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おめでとうございまず!
This is wonderful news for all parties involved.

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おめでとうございます! :tada: :confetti_ball: :beers:

Well deserved, your contributions as well as Haruka’s are certainly appreciated :bowing_man:
The substantial recent changes on the BP are definitely noted. So maybe there have been other team changes lately, either way it’s great and look forward to new development.

I had a fruitful discussion about BP on the WK boards recently. My impression has been that learners that don’t like BunPro seem to have primary goals of media consumption and the format does not attract this type of learner at all, and I can see why. The consensus was pretty unanimous too. I’m not sure I would even recommend BP as a primary JLPT grammar resource as the testing condition is completely different…so many different learning goals out there. Organizing grammar is really challenging too.

I would assume that many here (as am I) definitely have productive output goals that is practiced/used outside the system which is why I really like BP (as the platform is productive output exercise feedback loop that can be independently without an expert/teacher). So it will be interesting how BP evolves here out, because the content is really nice (the best bar none), especially now with audio. I recall you being a vocal advocate on new ideas so this is a real plus for the platform, best of luck!

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You heard it here first: Bunpro partners with the US government to teach Japanese to Area 51 aliens.

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I find this quite interesting actually, as Bunpro was what helped me (personally) dive into media consumption the fastest. I found that it gave me the most footholds of information required to make leaps in understanding a wide variety of media.

Did they discuss why this is? Is it design wise? Lack of in-depth information? Not ‘entertaining’ enough? Feel free to continue this convo with me in PM (or here if you’d like to share it with other users :blush:)

Haruna*
Don’t worry, I have “nearly” made this same mistake many times. Thankfully for my own safety, I have never accidentally said it out loud. :rofl:

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So much for “top-secret” :sweat_smile:

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