Recent Change to Hint System (How to implement Hints vs. Context)

[Houndstooth]

Now I am forced to read the sentence thoroughly and think about the grammar before I type in the answer.

I always viewed the English and found the orange hint a much bigger give-away than the English itself.

These guys took the words out of my mouth. I recently had the revelation that probably a good majority of the reason I struggle with nuances of similar grammar points is because instead of actually reading the sentence and trying to imagine what fits best, I was just reading the orange hints and learning the difference between wordings that correlated to a certain answer (almost like vocab) instead of learning how the grammar worked.

I was unsure if I had to use てくれる here (返してくれなさい).

In this case, attaching くれる wouldn’t make any sense, I don’t think, since it has 妹に and くれる (I believe) can only be used to describe actions being directed towards you. However, your previous example is valid, and in those cases I tend to use the undo function (though I’m very careful not to overdo it, and in some cases I let the SRS drop purely on principle).
If anyone with a deeper understanding wants to correct me, please do!

[jemmy_chaos]

Unfortunately they don’t all seem to have been correctly moved yet because I got loads wrong this morning because it didn’t tell me if it wanted casual or formal!

I can understand why you’ve done this but as a beginner I would really much rather have this on all the time so please can you make it a option, as it is to show the english or not.

[Kai]

In this case, attaching くれる wouldn’t make any sense, I don’t think, since it has 妹 に and くれる (I believe) can only be used to describe actions being directed towards you. However, your previous example is valid,

くれる and あげる are used to clarify a specific direction between “inside” and “outside” groups:

くれる = to give 内へ
あげる = to give 外へ

The bounds of your 内 (うち) and 外 (そと) are flexible depending on context (surprise!). If you’re speaking with a coworker for example, the boss of your company is decidedly above you both— and therefore definitely a part of your 外.

If you’re speaking to someone from another business, your boss is a part of →your← company, so in front of others, even your boss is a part of your 内 and should be referenced (by you) with humble, self-effacing words. Your boss, is of course, regarded as 外 by your business partner, who is almost assuredly addressing them (and you!) highly, using honorifics (keigo).

So, using くれる to reference a gift/favor given to one’s family member (外から内へ) is

 

Regarding the ～てくれてありがとう (ございます) structure, I can’t speak to exactly how common it is (versus simply ～てありがとう by itself) because it’s not something I’ve actively paid attention to, but it’s a seamless way to explicitly acknowledge that the person you’re speaking to has done the action for your 内’s benefit.

Maybe someone else here can speak with authority on the ratio of including/excluding くれて here, but I’ve personally just defaulted to throwing くれて (or its humble version, くださって) into almost all of my thank-you’s, figuring it’s safer to be over-appreciative than under-appreciative

(tagging @GregX999)

[Jake]

Sorry about that! We are working on getting all the nuance information separated from the tense information. If you notice any that aren’t working don’t hesitate to point them out via the feedback form.

In your user settings you can change the “Review English” setting to be “Hide”, “Hint”, “Show” or “More”.

@Flame @Houndstooth @seanblue @Anthropos888 @Sidgr Thank you for the feedback. Our aim is to cut down on the way the nuance gives the answer away which has definitely been an issue in the past. If you have any further thoughts, or feedback, especially criticisms, after using it more, please don’t hesitate to let us know!

[jamie]

“Can you say it in another way” is kind of annoying without further hint what grammar point should be used. I think it’s better to give more hints.

[monkeytunes]

I think the translation CSS isn’t loading properly on mobile. Everything looks great for me now in Chrome on my laptop, I can cycle through everything, looks peachy. But on Mobile (I use Chrome on Android, not the app), the text is the same color as the background, except for the orange hints. I can highlight some text and paste-it elsewhere, so I know it’s showing up, but it’s effectively invisible (bold “blue” words included). I use the [Modern] theme, so I don’t know if it’s different on other themes.

[seanblue]

Better not enough than too much.

[Kai]

Better not enough than too much.

Agreeing with this, even though the occasional vagaries can be a nuisance.

I’d prefer to have 文プロ coax me into producing all the grammar on my own, rather than just training me to recall it all upon seeing certain English “trigger words” for each point.

[Sidgr]

This considered instead of using nothing or English keywords, we could just included some basic Japanese Equivalents for example instead of saying masculine or feminine it could say：
男らしい/女らしい this is just one example and I not sure the most effective way to explain this, but again I find that the context needs to part of the question as it will always being included in natural language use. Excluding it here seems like a very bad step in Bunpro’s development.

[seanblue]

It’s not as easy as you make it out to be. The problem is that much of the time, the so-called context was just a magic English keyword/phrase that gave away the answer. For example, for ということ the context is “phrase to noun”. This so-called context is meaningless to me for actually understanding the grammar, but believe me, I sure did memorize that “phrase to noun” meant answer with ということ.

[MissDagger]

I just got a review like this for 方がいい although for me it is the translated answer rather than the orange hint (especially now that the translated answer arrives first and the orange hint last).

All I saw first was just タバコを and the verb at the end. No clue as to what they wanted me to do with that. Was it past form, formal or not? Some kind of request? Like I couldn’t even begin to guess because there are too many options what to do with a verb and a blank space. So I got the translated answer and my brain went “It would be better not to” means negative verb + 方がいい. It might have been better to get a hint like “advice to not do” or I don’t know the exact wording I’d want used, but something that gave me an actual hint what to start trying.

[seanblue]

So I got the translated answer and my brain went “It would be better not to” means negative verb + 方がいい.

But that means you figured it out, right? Sounds like making you work for it is a good thing.

(Disclaimer: I haven’t done reviews in weeks so I haven’t tried this new hint mechanism yet.)

[Sidgr]

In that case it is the exact grammatical from the question is asking you to do. I think you are also missing my larger point. There are types of expression in Japanese that are expressly baked with context and if my program is supposed to be teaching me the contexts that those words appear in it is core to the grammar.

Your example is that the question allowed to you memorize the exact grammar that the Japanese phrase encapsulates. I fail to see how that is a bad thing. Sure I get that you want to intuit that it is a nominalizer by just the English, which is fine. That is a setting and order based problem. I am much more concerned when the grammar is the same, the English is the same, and it is context alone that differentiates the Japanese morphology.

[jamie]

I beg to differ.
Too much is better for me. English is not my main language so I had to translate two languages at the same time to study. It’s already a pain.
I had enough of not getting hints on books I read.

[seanblue]

Your example is that the question allowed to you memorize the exact grammar that the Japanese phrase encapsulates. I fail to see how that is a bad thing.

I’m memorizing an English phrase when I should be learning the Japanese grammar. In the real world I don’t have an English keyword to figure out the Japanese from; I have to recognize the Japanese on its own. I fail to see how me passing the SRS by memorizing an English keyword is acceptable.

If you want context, the sentences should provide more Japanese context, not English keywords. And I don’t mean Japanese keywords either. I’m talking about things like including preceding sentences.

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I am much more concerned when the grammar is the same, the English is the same, and it is context alone that differentiates the Japanese morphology.

In this case, what is wrong with answering, being told to try again, and answering with something else? Using your picture earlier in the thread (“I wonder”), just try かな, and if you get told to try again try かしら. What’s wrong with that?

[MissDagger]

No, that is exactly what I didn’t have to do. Because while you have associated a keyword with a specific Japanese grammar, I’ve associated that grammar with that specific phrase. Meaning if it asked me for a “strong advice not to”, I’m not sure I’d even know what to put in.

Basically what you said here:

I’m memorizing an English phrase when I should be learning the Japanese grammar. In the real world I don’t have an English keyword to figure out the Japanese from; I have to recognize the Japanese on its own. I fail to see how me passing the SRS by memorizing an English keyword is acceptable.

[jamie]

I found it easier and faster to associate with keyword rather than thinking with the whole sentence. I believe that’s the hint job, to associate keyword with grammar points so you can reproduce them without having to remember exact example sentences.

If I want to create “must” sentence, I immediately recall なくてはいけない.
“must” = なくてはいけない in my brain. The rest of the sentence can be created with other keyword, for example conjugating with て-form is on separate keyword.

[Kamikazen]

Personally I really like the new changes made. It makes really learn the way I want to. Like @seanblue and so many others, I just used the english hint to know what grammar point would be correct, without really understanding the sentence.
I have been stuck on my studies for almost a month, and since I use the method of not doing new grammar points until I get 85% of my reviews right, I hadn’t added any new grammar since April 1st.
Today is the first day I finish my reviews and I almost got 100% correct! Just one wrong, out of 53 review points. This new way of presenting the sentences makes me really have to focus on what they are asking, and if it’s a noun or verb that’s next to my answer. If i want more context, I can always press Spacebar, or even hit backspace so the hint shows up if I feel there was just too little information for me to get the correct answer.
So thank you thank you than you, this will improve greatly my learning experience, passing from learning how to get the answer right, to learning correct japanese grammar based on context.

[MosbyNeko]

Just want to give a little feedback on this change, now that I’ve had a chance to get used to it for a couple of weeks. I really do like the new system of hiding the orange hint upfront – I think that’s a great change, and as others have said, it’s made reviews much harder, but in a good way.

However, I wanted to bring up the change of putting the “necessary” hints (politeness, etc) in the _____ within the sentence itself. After using this for a while, this has been pretty frustrating for me, because the hint disappears as soon as you start typing, and if you get the answer wrong, it doesn’t reappear.

Take this example, from my current review session:

When I get something wrong, I try to spend a little time thinking it through again to see if I can spot the error on my own, instead of just immediately revealing the correct answer (I find that helps me remember better). But at this point, it’s not really clear from the UI what’s wrong, is it?

In this case, it turned out that Bunpro was just requesting the polite tense:

It’s definitely my mistake for missing this before I started answering. But there’s no way to see that hint again until the next time the item comes up for review, and frankly, I’m so slow at working through some of these conjugations that by the time I’ve finished typing in my answer, I can’t be confident I’m remembering the hint correctly anyway. Note that even revealing the correct answer at this point (つけなければいけません) still leaves things ambiguous, because I can’t easily tell whether this had to be polite because Bunpro was simply asking for the polite tense, or because there was something about the grammar point/example sentence that inherently warranted the politeness.

Not sure if I’m alone in this, but just wanted to surface it, as it’s something that’s bitten me several times since the change was made. In general, I’m not crazy about hiding the hint during the review at all, but at the very least I think it would be an improvement if the hint reappeared after the answer is submitted. Thanks!

[Anthropos888]

Agree. I think Bunpro should never mark an answer wrong because of the “wrong” politeness (except for 尊敬語). That’s frustrating. Normally they’re using hints like “more polite” or “more casual” when they’re looking for a specific form. But it’s not consistent so some sentences just get marked wrong instead of showing the hint.
Should be easy for them to search for all sentences with the “polite” or “casual” tag and then add a hint to all of these sentences.