Renshuu.org - Study Japanese Online

Hello,

I haven't had any new terms introduced into my quizzes for a long time, but started again a few days ago. Now I noticed that the news terms are introduced in alphabetical order. For example, 6 of the 7 new terms of the last quiz started with あさ or あざ, followed by あしからず...It wasn't that way before. Maybe I'm blind, but I can't find an option about it anywhere in the settings. I'd appreciate it if someone could tell me how to randomize that again...

There isn't a setting right now - it introduces the terms (loosely) based on how they are introduced via the materials you are using.

What are you studying, and were the materials introduced randomly in the past?

I have a schedule which consists of the whole JLPT-N2 and JLPT-N1 material
I've been studying using that schedule since 2009 I think (first only N2, later I added N1). The new materials have always been introduced in random order. Starting September 2010 I went to Japan for a year, where I almost never used the site (no new terms introduced during that time).

Then, a few weeks ago, I wanted to start studying again, at first without introducing any new terms. After a time I excluded a lot of the material (basically everything with a mastery level of 8 or 9), and started introducing new terms again. That's when I noticed that they're coming in alphabetical order.

I guess excluding so much of the material was somewhat unusual, that must have been several hundred items at once. Maybe that caused some sort of bug?

The first time I introduced new terms, I remember that number one was あぶる, and there also were あえて、仰ぐ, 愛想 and a few more I don't remember. At first I didn't really notice that they all started with あ. But when I make a new quiz now I get these new terms:
痣
麻
浅ましい
欺く
あざ笑う
鮮やか
悪しからず

,in that order. あさ、あざ、あし seems like Hiragana-ordering, but あぶる as number one only makes sense with alphabetical order...I don't know what to make of it, but there's no way it's a coincidence.

I'm having similar issues with both my kanji and vocab schedules, both for N1 with only N1 material. The kanji seem to be ordered by their onyomi as all new items introduced in a quiz always seem to have the exact same onyomi which makes the onyomi questions rather easy...

I've had the same words pop up in my vocab schedule in the same order as Trott lists. They too seem to be in some sort of alphabetical order.

Very interesting. If (either of) you can, leave one of your schedules with the problem so that when the next quiz is taken, new terms should be introduced. You can test this by starting a quiz, then immediately stopping it after the first question appears.

Let me know which schedule it is, then I will hopefully be able to go in, start the quiz myself, replicate the problem, and squash it out. I can think of a number of changes that I have made that might have caused this behavior, but until I can replicate it, I will not be able to figure out which out is the culprit.

kanji: sched_id=8649
vocab: sched_id=8703

My sched_id is 2601

Seems that the first time I had new terms introduced, only about half of them started with あ: かじる,　かび,　よこす and　ずうずうしい also came in new. That's probably why I didn't notice it at the time.
But starting a new one now, even with 50 new terms, every single one of them starts with あ.

I also tried making another schedule with different material (Genki I). Different words now, but all of them starting with あ.

Found the issue. Make some adjustments, confirmed myself that it was working with the one schedule I tested. If you have a chance, please test with your own schedules and let me know!

Yep, new terms coming at random now
Seems like you fixed it!

どうもありがとう =)

Hmm
Another strange thing is happening now: If I exclude any of the new terms because I already know them and click on start quiz, ALL terms get replaced, not just the ones I excluded. I guess that's not intended?

It is..kinda intended. Say you have a pool of unstudied terms. They are saved in the site as a list, and this list might be (definitely is, in the case of the jlpt materials) in alphabetical order.

In order to introduce the terms randomly, it needs to say 'give me xx random terms that arent studied'. My guess is that in this case, it isnt actually removing all the terms (just the one you chose), but it is going ahead and giving you a fresh set; since randomness is going to be different each time, the new terms will be as well.

If you feel this is a large distraction, I can look into preserving the other new terms with only redrawing enough to replace the excluded ones.

Just to be safe, though: next time it happens, please go into the dictionary and check a few of the other terms to make sure they don't appear as excluded.

This might not be related, but I haven't noticed it happening until today ... I just added some new material to a schedule (#5054) and I have it set to allow 2-4 new terms per quiz, but it's giving me 6 for some reason  

Well, it used to replace only the excluded ones when reloading the new terms. That was more practical for me, since with 10 new terms, there's usually at least one I already know.

But it's no big deal, I can just exclude them once they appear in the quiz.

Well, if that was the old behavior, then there must be something else I am missing. Hmm...let me keep thinking on it.

Sorry for the delay - trying to help your brother move into the country while not having a car because the license center likes to fail you repeatedly has made it rather busy as of late.

How does it look now?

Sorry for the late answer, I was traveling and didn't have internet the past 2 weeks

Seems to be working perfectly now!