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Top > renshuu.org > Questions about renshuu



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mertb
Level: 21
hello all,
i'm not very new into this community but wasn't an active user. started to one the studies with kao-chan recommendations but here's the kick; i wasn't feelin it.
you know what i mean, you feel like you are making progress, you are learning or you are strenghten your vocabulary, kanji, grammar, anything. i was just logging in and doing reviews which are waiting for me, that's it.
bur renshuu is praised everywhere, so i thouht that i must be using it in a wrong way. so i'm asking you, how do you study here? also i have bunpro subscription for grammar studies, is there a way to not to use grammar from here or make them act as one with bunpro, like reorder the study?
i'm fairly new with japanese, at 10th chapter of first genki book, so any recommendation will suit me well:)
thank you for reading!
1
4 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256

Thanks for the comment - I appreciate the constructive criticism. I think what you hit upon is something that we can definitely do better here. I don't actually use the site actively to study (I did for many years, but I'm pretty comfortable with my Japanese level now), so hopefully some other users can jump in.


Because of the open-ended nature of the site (there is no single path that everyone is on), it is not as easy to show progress, so I definitely feel like some improvement could be made here. We've got a few systems in place that hopefully appeal to some users: some users collect kao-coins, others work on expanding their kao manga series, and then there are general achievements (although I think a renewal of that is due this year).


I've love to hear what type of motivation helps you in other sites/platforms. For you, is it clearer information on what you've actually achieved, or do you prefer an external system (levels, points, a path, etc) to represent the progress you've made?


As far as the grammar goes, while you can add individual grammar expressions to a schedule, for example, they are best studied in the lessons they are already grouped into since the questions draw from those other expressions to make up the incorrect answers.

2
4 years ago
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mertb
Level: 21
Thanks for the comment - I appreciate the constructive criticism. I think what you hit upon is something that we can definitely do better here. I don't actually use the site actively to study (I did for many years, but I'm pretty comfortable with my Japanese level now), so hopefully some other users can jump in.


Because of the open-ended nature of the site (there is no single path that everyone is on), it is not as easy to show progress, so I definitely feel like some improvement could be made here. We've got a few systems in place that hopefully appeal to some users: some users collect kao-coins, others work on expanding their kao manga series, and then there are general achievements (although I think a renewal of that is due this year).


I've love to hear what type of motivation helps you in other sites/platforms. For you, is it clearer information on what you've actually achieved, or do you prefer an external system (levels, points, a path, etc) to represent the progress you've made?


As far as the grammar goes, while you can add individual grammar expressions to a schedule, for example, they are best studied in the lessons they are already grouped into since the questions draw from those other expressions to make up the incorrect answers.

thank you for understanding and being open-minded about it.
well, i don't need motivation; from now on, even just a little bit of motivation would kill me. i'm really highly motivated and serious on japanese. i just couldn't find a way to make a path for me, i don't want renshuu to babysit me, but it'd be better to have something like "hey, are you a new user? how about this path? oh, so you want to study with genki, how about this path then."

i find lots of lessons and paths (let's say that) but there're really lots of information here and add the games equation, there're really lots of thins going on.

for grammars, i don't know how i ended up like that but, kanjis and vocabs were coming from genki -i'm sure about it- but grammar points were harder, sentences were definetely harder and lots of "well, i haven't learned this thingy yet" moments for me. maybe i just couldn't find a way to renshuu work for me. i checked faq and help for instructions, but couldn't find a one for me to explain how things work here.

maybe there should be a wall of text to help people like me to not losing their focus. a small walkthrough maybe. i read lots of positive reviews about here and i was planning to buy a subscription too, but i couldn't even used my free trial period with a productive way.

lastly, i really want to clarify something, renshuu seems great place to practice and i really appreciate the good work. it just feels and looks so hard to understand and collaborate with.

0
4 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256

Thanks for the feedback! Your answer is actually quite different from what I anticipated, so I appreciate you taking the time to spell everything out.

I just took a look at your account data, and I think I see why you're confused. It appears that the onboarding process did not finish for you, so you were left without any schedules, which are the main mechanism that 90%+ of the users utilize for their studies. In your words, the schedules are the "paths". Unless perhaps you removed them?

Based on what I'm looking at, I'd recommend you give the following a shot: go to Help > Getting Started. It sounds like you did use this initially, but I do not see any schedules made. Please let me know if you have any issues with this step.

If you finish that, then the schedules that popup are what you can study - for Genki, it should start you with a vocab and a kanji schedule. The grammar materials are geared towards the JLPT path, which does not map quite that well over the Genki materials. You can give the N5 grammar materials a try from Learn > Study Center (Grammar), and they are a lot easier than they were about a year ago (we redid a lot of the N5 materials).

I appreciate the request for more documentation - the FAQ really needs an overhaul. It's easy for me to listen and respond to everyone's ideas because I am the only one that runs the site (flexibility), but time restraints make it difficult to respond as much as I'd like to.

We are looking at ways to further clear out some of the clutter that a new user probably doesn't need until they've been here awhile. It's a work in progress, but more and more is getting removed until "the right time" when it gets introduced into the site.

Please let me know if any of this helps (or doesn't!). I appreciate your patience, and if we get things working for you, let me know and I'd be happy to give you another renshuu pro trial to use if and when you'd like. It's the least I could do for your willingness to try and make the site work out for you!

2
4 years ago
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mertb
Level: 21
wow, thank you! i had schedules, in fact, just flushed everything for a fresh start (used the almighty reset button).
that's why grammars seemed so hard then, because there're literally somethings i quite don't understand.
i will try to make a fresh start with your suggestions -in a few days, i really want to give it a go- (now at least i know that i didn't do something wrong, i just couldn't get how renshuu works) and will see how it goes.
if i get how things work and if i stick around, i'd be glad to help if i can in anyways. and thank you for your generous offer!
0
4 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256

Let me know if there is anything else I can answer, or any suggestions you have.

1
4 years ago
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フキトウ
Level: 76

Hi Michael.

After reading your answers I know I wasn't missing something at the getting started tutorial. I was wondering about because I was expecting the starter kanji schedule to automatically get the next level kanji list, after I've marked each one as known.

If I understood well the user has to choose what to study next in each schedule?

PD: my English is a work in progress. I hope you can understand me ☺️


0
3 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 256

Oh wow, you did a lot of marking! Great!

If you completely get through those and want to study more, there's two ways you can do it.

1. (The easy way) Go to Help > Getting Started. If you choose a different path, you'll get those schedules made for you.

2. (I recommend this, as it'll give you more control over renshuu studies in the future) - Tap the settings icon next to the Study / Extra Review button, then go to Adjust materials. This is the page you can use to add/remove materials. Based on your account, I'd search for JLPT N4, and add the lessons in there. They are one step above what you're doing now.

Now, I happened to notice that your vocabulary schedule has only kanji vectors on it (kanji > kana, kana > kanji). Because of your kanji level, a lot of words are not available for studying. (Since they don't have kanji, or only have kanji that you haven't studied yet).

I'd personally add one more study vector, such as definition > kana. That would expose those terms for studying.

I hope this helps!

1
3 years ago
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