Submitting error reports

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  fuonk November 25, 2015 at 4:51am

  I wrote the last sentence badly; what I meant is that a Japanese word which is a 名詞 is often given a definition in English which is a verb instead of a noun. This is incorrect and misleading even if the 名詞 can also function as a する verb; it should only be defined as a verb if する is present. The same applies to 形容動詞; these should only be translated by adjectives if な is present.
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  beeant November 25, 2015 at 6:45am

  You can always post them on social feeds or open a thread in forum.
  
  I'm sorry for the problems.
  I have fixed existence, coexistence and to weigh one's mind. As for the "to weigh on one's mind", I think there are some Japanese words that have broad meanings and difficult to explain in regular English expression.
  As for 抱く, and other words that are usually written in hiragana but written in kanji in JCJP, they are written in kanji because in the database I separated the columns for kanji, kana, romaji, english, other languages, etc. So to fill in the kanji column, I tend to choose the kanji for it.
  
  Yes, I know what you mean, now I think even in the question, it's better to include part of speech?
  
  Thank you for your report!
• 
  fuonk November 25, 2015 at 9:29am

  I'm not sure you understand the problem with 抱く. The problem is that what the user hears is different from what is written in ひらがな. That is confusing, unless the user already knows that 「抱く」 has more than one 読み. The pronunciation in the recording should always correspond to the ひらがな spelling given for the pronunciation.
  
  Here's another example: 他の is shown as たの in hiragana, but pronounced as ほかの in the sound recording.
  
  Maybe you are using a text-to-speech engine, and you have no control over which 読み it chooses for a given piece of text. In that case, you should either make sure that the ひらがな shown correspond to what the text-to-speech engine chooses, or (if you are determined to teach a different 読み) you should not allow that particular word to be read aloud.
  
  The parts of speech are sometimes given when the English words have very different meanings depending on which part of speech is being used, but there are many English words which have no indication despite the fact that they can be used for more than one part of speech. I think that's acceptable; what isn't acceptable is when there is no meaning of the English word or phrase which has the same part of speech as the Japanese word.
  
  Here is an example: One of the vocabulary items in lesson 53 is 別居する, which is unambiguously a verb. The definition given for it is "living apart, separation". "Separation" is a noun, and even though "to live" is a verb, "living apart" is a noun phrase (the present participle "living" is functioning as a gerund, that is, as a noun). Both of these definitions are wrong for the verb 別居する. The usual problem is the other way around; the Japanese word is given without "する", but the English definition is a verb.
  
  Unfortunately, correcting all of these problems would require a major editing effort; it would take forever to correct them one or two at a time. They tend to slow down learning, because the mismatch in usage often registers in the mind of the learner as a difference in meaning.
  
  I just want to mention a problem with the "Practice" function which is related to the spaced repetition issue. I have several words which come up extremely frequently during practice sessions-- two of them are 信じる and 体操, but there are others. Your program seems to recognize that these have been tested too much, because it awards 0 experience points for giving the correct answer. If your program can recognize that, it should also be able to have those words come up as questions less frequently (or not at all). You must be doing two different computations and coming up with different answers as to the suitability of testing these words.
  
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  fuonk November 25, 2015 at 9:40am

  I should mention that there are a small number of words for which a mismatch in parts of speech is very hard to avoid. For example, 好き is a 形容動詞, and most 形容動詞 have adjectives in English as their most natural translation (for example, 静かな corresponds to the English adjective "quiet"). The most natural translations of 好き are, of course, "like" and "love", which are verbs; one could force the issue by making a correspondence between 好きな and "likeable", but it would not be a good teaching choice, since the most natural translation of 私は～が好き is usually "I like/love ~", not "~ is likeable to me" or "I find ~ likeable."
  
  For the vast majority of words, however, a natural translation can be given whose part of speech corresponds to the part of speech of the Japanese word.
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  fuonk November 25, 2015 at 9:43am

  The English definition for 曲がる, "turn direction", should be "turn, change direction" or just "turn" or just "change direction". The phrase "turn direction" would not be natural in any English sentence I can think of.
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  beeant November 27, 2015 at 7:39am

  @fuonk,
  
  I understand what you mean.
  Yes, those are one of the biggest problem in JCJP, the some of the ふりがな (especially in reading and sentences) are translated using a software called "kakasi", and for the pronunciation, it is also translated using an engined.
  
  So in order to fix this problem,
  1. We need to create our own database for kanji → kana translation, if it already exist with free license, please let me know.
  2. Same as the kana, we need to create our own database of word → sound. If it already exist with free license, please also let me know.
  
  Thank you for your understanding that "correcting all of these problems would require a major editing effort; it would take forever to correct them one or two at a time." I remember that you helped JCJP by creating a list of corrections. Thank you for that. I want to create an interface where users can help JCJP to make those editing effort. And this requires proper moderation too.
  
  Yes, the current question fetching algorithm in practice is based on unproved method, where the question is based in pretty much abstract manner. You're right, there are multiple different concrete computations which are chosen randomly (this is the abstract part).
  
  I'm pretty much finished with coding of the new spaced repetition where the practice questions is fetched in a more concrete manner. Basically there are two different question fetcher computations:
  1. based on the spaced-repetition computation (oblivion date and box)
  2. random question (used as a fallback if the computation 1 doesn't return any)
  Since you seem seem to understand the JCJP mechanics pretty well, if it's ok with you, please join in the discussion of the new SRS system: http://japaneseclass.jp/forum/thread/1383
• 
  beeant November 27, 2015 at 7:42am

  Sorry for this problem, and thank you for your report! The English definition of 曲がる has been fixed.
• 
  fuonk November 30, 2015 at 5:00am

  危険な and 危ない came up as choices for the clue "dangerous". I chose the first, which has definition string "dangerous", and it was counted as wrong.
  There are also problems with words which are close in meaning, but this is a bug. The testing algorithm should be comparing the selected definition to the definition stored for the choice; it should not decide in advance which answer is "correct" when there is this possibility that more than one choice may literally match the definition asked for.
• 
  mog86uk November 30, 2015 at 6:10am

  I've had this exact same situation before (or maybe it was the other way round, with both 危険な and 危ない in the answer list). I got caught out by it too.
  
  A better solution might be to stop two identical answers being able to shown in the first place. Hopefully it could also stop the opposite way round from happening too (the thing I mentioned in my first paragraph), by changing the query that finds the three random wrong answers to filter out ones which exactly match the question (in this case - filtering out any which have "dangerous" as their English meaning).
• 
  fuonk November 30, 2015 at 2:34pm

  In the definition of 「体験」, the word "though" should be changed to "through".
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  beeant December 5, 2015 at 1:47pm

  @fuonk, thank you for your report! I just fixed go though → go through for 体験
• 
  fuonk December 7, 2015 at 4:40pm

  Lesson 71
  "to keep in mind, to bare in mind" -- "bare" should be "bear"
  "telephone instrument" -- this should be one or more of the following: "telephone receiver", "telephone equipment", "telephone set". It is actually usually just called a "telephone" ("phone" for short).
  
  Lesson 72
  "origin of a fire" should be "cause of a fire"
  
  Lesson 73
  "repeating the same class" should be "repeating the same year of school"
  "arrival to Japan, coming to Japan, visit to Japan" should be "arrival in Japan, coming to Japan, visiting Japan"
  "transmigration, migration, imigration" should be "migration, immigration" -- note the double m in "immigration"
  
  Lesson 75
  "occur frequently, happen ofte, repeated occurance" -- "ofte" should be "often", "occurance" should be "occurence"
  
  
• 
  beeant December 7, 2015 at 7:11pm

  @fuonk
  thank you for the report and correction. I have fixed them except:
  - Lesson 72, origin of a fire. I'm not sure if I should change it as it is also written as "origin" instead of cause in http://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E7%81%AB%E5%85%83
  - Lesson 73, should I omit transmigration?
• 
  fuonk December 7, 2015 at 10:37pm

  "Transmigration" is a fairly unusual word in English. It is sometimes used for a soul entering another body after death (reincarnation is a form of this); otherwise, it has the same meaning as "migration". You might want to include "emigration", though, if 移住 is also used for leaving a country ("immigration" means entering a country, usually with the intent of living there).
  
  "The origin of a fire" isn't wrong, but "the cause of a fire" is a more natural way of expressing this idea, in my opinion. "Origin" can be misunderstood as focusing on the place where the fire started; I assume that 火元 is usually used to mean what caused the fire to happen.
  
  
• 
  fuonk December 7, 2015 at 10:49pm

  In Vocabulary Lesson 77, the 発音 given for 慣用句 is かにょうく. I believe this is a typo, and should be かんようく.
• 
  beeant December 8, 2015 at 7:36am

  Sorry for the problem and thanks for the report! I just fixed 慣用句 in vocabulary lesson chapter 77.
• 
  beeant December 8, 2015 at 7:47am

  transmigration has been omitted and emigration has been added to 移住
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  dddd February 3, 2016 at 9:24pm

  Hope it is alright to post here. Understand if it's difficult to fix, but thought I'd mention. Had "Catch (a cold)" come up during a practice session. The Japanese would be "風邪を引く". Among the options presented I had "引く" and "ひく". In this case they're the same, but neither is sufficient. Moreover, "引く" came out as "look up a word in a dictionary" (辞書を引く), which feels like a stretch without a context. "引く" just means "pull".
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  JACKBOSMA February 5, 2016 at 7:20am

  Can members be given editing options? Limit it to individuals with an outstanding knowledge of the language.
  
• 
  devilyoudont February 14, 2016 at 10:03am

  I hope this is a good place to post this. Hiragana for 鼻血が出る shows はなじがでる。This is a compound word of 鼻（はな）and 血（ち）and as such the hiragana for 鼻血 should be はなぢ
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  DragonR33UA February 14, 2016 at 10:22am

  意識
  いしき
  awareness
  Has also meaning consciousness
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  DragonR33UA February 14, 2016 at 11:41am

  @Jackbosma This is a good idea about editing options? Plus allow some outstanding users make the new set of Kanji and words. It would be really great and boost the studying. Also it saves time for beeant to do this. He just need to manage it.
• 
  beeant February 14, 2016 at 2:39pm

  Can you rxplain more about the editing options you want?
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  JACKBOSMA February 23, 2016 at 11:55pm

  Allow the top 10 users in overall all time scores to have editing capabilities. Their commitment and experience is proven.
  
• 
  mog86uk February 24, 2016 at 4:07am

  Are you sure about that? Prepare to see a large reduction of Z's and an increase of S's and U's. :P
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  DragonR33UA February 24, 2016 at 11:25am

  Jackbosma has a good idea. It could be a collective decision. For example, one person will fix something and tell it, when the rest will agree it could work. For example here.
  
  In Vocabulary Lesson 77, the 発音 given for 慣用句 is かにょうく. I believe this is a typo, and should be かんようく.
  
  When someone from 10 user could see this and say nothing against, then fix it. So that it would be any big mistakes or stuff like this. It will be secure.
• 
  Solaris February 24, 2016 at 12:21pm

  You could add a review or approve function that every edit need to be reviewed or approved first.
• 
  DragonR33UA February 24, 2016 at 9:50pm

  @Solaris This is a good idea. It could help and makes everything faster.
• 
  lROXAS February 25, 2016 at 4:45am

  For the kanji question 生 the answer is せい which in the dictionary means life but the English definition given in the recently answered part of practice is "raw / uncooked / fresh". Is the definition mismatched or am I missing something?
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  DragonR33UA February 25, 2016 at 12:52pm

  味もそっけもない
  あじもそっけもない
  insipid, boring Before it was inspired. mistake.
• 
  mog86uk February 26, 2016 at 7:33am

  @DragonR33UA, That one has was always been listed on here as "insipid", at least going as far back as the time I first encountered it (something like three years ago). I've just checked Vocabulary chapter 44, and it still says "insipid". As far as I know there isn't any mistake with this one? ^^
  
  I'm not sure how many of the following might possibly just be silly American spellings I'm not aware of, but some of them are 100% definitely typos ("dinstinction", "wathcul", "pertrified"). These are all the English spelling mistakes in the vocabularly lessons that I am aware of:
  
  済む (ch.41)　be finish　→　be finished
  椿 (ch.44)　camelia　→　camellia
  たびに (ch.47)　everytime　→　every time
  恩 (ch.47)　dept of gratitude　→　debt ...
  恥 (ch.47)　embarassment　→　embarrassment
  甘え (ch.47)　dependance　→　dependence
  識別 (ch.49)　dinstinction　→　distinction
  電子工学 (ch.50)　electronical engineering　→　electronic ...
  グルグル (ch.57)　turning around and round
  　→　turning round and round
  財産 (ch.72)　possesion　→　possession (/possessions)
  多発 (ch.75)　occurence　→　occurrence
  顔から火が出る (ch.78)　embarassed　→　embarrassed
  目を配る (ch.78)　wathcful　→　watchful
  腹黒い (ch.79)　blackhearted　→　black-hearted
  腰を抜かす (ch.79)　pertrified　→　petrified
  
  My answer-by-typing mod for Practice requires that I type the answer exactly identical to the way it is listed, so when I encounter some of these questions above as "Reverse Vocabulary" question type I often get a bit stuck and confused... And then there are also around 50 questions which use non-British English spellings/words... xD
• 
  fuonk February 27, 2016 at 8:32am

  "Blackhearted" is listed in some US English dictionaries as an acceptable alternate spelling. All of the others are misspellings in US English as well.
• 
  mog86uk February 27, 2016 at 11:40am

  @fuonk, Ah, I knew some had probably slipped through. There are several others I'm not 100% certain about:
  
  上手 (ch.12)　skillful　→　skilful
  ふるさと (ch.38)　hometown　→　home town
  大人 (ch.50)　grownup　→　grown-up
  
  本屋 (ch.8)　bookstore　→　book shop
  - I realise with this one you guys use the word store whereas we say shop, but is this supposed to be written as one word?
  
  理髪店 (ch.45)　barbershop　→　barber's (barber's shop) / hairdresser's
  - I know it is written as one word when talking about the musical style, but is it still written this way when used to mean the actual shop itself?
  
  ガソリンスタンド (ch.45)　gas station (US), petrol stand (UK)
  　→　... (US), petrol station (UK) / garage (UK)
  - You'd think it's likely one of us must use the word "stand", because otherwise it seems strange that Japan decided to use スタンド. I'm fairly certain we never call it a stand here in the UK, so maybe the US wording is meant to be "gasoline stand" instead? Maybe those words were accidentally listed the wrong way round on JCJP?
  
  自分勝手 (ch.68)　self-centered　→　self-centred
  - Not sure about this one, as I'm fairly sure you only use the spelling "center" and never "centre" when the word is used on its own, but possibly not in this case?
  
  The other words I realise are just US spellings though: neighbor, realize, meter (as in the unit of measurement, not a measuring device), offense, ...and other spellings of the same types as these.
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  JACKBOSMA February 28, 2016 at 3:00am

  Please post the errors in the notes section. Good study material.
  Title them ERROR NOTES. That way the correct content can be practiced.
• 
  JACKBOSMA February 28, 2016 at 3:03am

  Let's go with additional editor capabilities.