Oh, so I’m the only weird one sorting by difficulty? I tend to filter out the ungraded books when I do that by the way, since they are pretty noisy when sorting by difficulty.
If you’re referred to pinned topics, then you probably want to change this setting.
I could not agree more (as @brandon already knows haha). I feel very strongly that external links should pretty much always open in a new tab. Maybe a user setting is warranted (which is what Discourse does by the way).
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If @brandon hasn’t changed the default settings too much, going from Basic to Member (at which point there’s no limit) takes very little time.
I’m likely the resident Discourse expert, since I’ve been participating on the WaniKani Discourse forums for several years now and have reported many a bug to the Discourse devs.
Will this resync automatically? I didn’t like the way the banner appeared here so I deleted it, but want to make sure it won’t come back.
Ah! So this appears to be a ‘first day’ limit, not a trust level issue as far as I can tell. You only get 10 replies your first day. I’ve bumped up to 15, seems like a reasonable limit for now.
No, you’re not the only one, but obviously the default ordering is most common . I’d love to make ‘exclude temporary ratings’ default and only remove that when doing a text search, but that also is somewhat complicated.
I don’t particularly like the any solution here to be honest, but I don’t think it’s good to limit the library for this issue. I don’t know!
Oh shoot… yes it will come back if you edit your profile details (I think).
I’ve now turned off that override setting, so you should be good. I don’t want people have substantially different profiles between the forums & main site, but profile background I’m not worried about.
Edit: Although, now that I think about it, if you update your main site background it won’t update your forum profile background. Hmm. I could have it force override only if you change your background image?
I have a thought for the forums, to diferentiate them visually from the main site. By that I mean, the large rectangular logo, the small square logo, and the favicon. The main issue I have is that the favicon is the same as the main site, so I can’t tell at a glance which site an open tab is for. The logos are fine, though the large logo (mobile version at least) is a bit awkward on dark theme since it’s primarily white. I’d recommend reusing the logo you have on the footer of the site for the favicon and the small square logo. If possible you should reuse it for the large rectangular logo as well, or maybe get a modified version made for those proportions. I think that will give more of a “community” feel compared to the plainer logos.
Fair enough. It is just a bit awkward to have two profiles. I’m not entirely sure of the best solution, I’ll think on it.
Again, it could be a user preference whether to sync them or not. It’s probably worthwhile to do a quick bit of work on preferences as there does seem to be quite a few that’d be nice to have.
I think I really like this idea
I agree that the plain logo juxtaposed next to a plain text forum leaves a bit to be desired. On the main site there’s tons of images and graphics so it works, but not here. And yes it’d be great to differentiate. Really appreciate the idea!
I don’t really want to get ahead of myself here… we’ll have to see how korean goes. I suspect once I have things set up for two languages, it should be relatively simple to expand to a few more if they’re straightforward, like romance languages. German would be very easy; Spanish is the most attractive one, but I’d have to handle dialects, which may (or may not) pose complications.
But, we’ll really have to see how well the platform is performing for Japanese. If we can’t show a model which is really attractive and growing for Japanese learners than chasing additional languages is fruitless. We very well may just focus on Korean and Japanese for a while.
I probably wouldn’t even be doing Korean right now if it weren’t for the fact I am living here . But I do think being able to do a language I’m focused on and can do in person outreach for is beneficial.
When you switch to adding more languages, what will you do with the current grading system (which currently mentions the JLPT levels as a part of the grades)? Will you institute different grading systems for each language or will you begin consolidating levels since some language proficiency levels/exams don’t have the same amount?
well, the JLPT levels are only a manual mapping from the grading levels. For Korean, I’ll just map TOPIK levels manually per user suggestions. European languages I think are all on CEFR (?) which makes things easier. That mapping would toggle when you switch languages.
You are right to wonder if a ‘lvl 20’ book in Korean would require a similar proficiency in Korean as a ‘lvl 20’ book in Japanese. Obviously they won’t be exactly the same, but it would be nice to try to get them in the same ball park… I actually think it’ll probably come out pretty close, but we’ll have to see!
The CEFR is just a framework of reference, as the name so subtly implies, so it can be used for all languages. It would make it less of a headache if that was used in place of language-specific exams, which almost certainly don’t line up with each other.
I don’t see why they have to line up anyway if it’s completely different languages. Having Japanese books with a random “B2” tag doesn’t seem too helpful, I don’t even know what JLPT level that would be. And it’s not relevant to me either way, because the information I want to gather from the JLPT tags is “Which JLPT level do I (roughly) need to be at to be able to read this book?” And Japanese proficiency just happens to be measured by the JLPT (most of the time).
I don’t care whether one book is B1 in German and another B2 in Japanese. Personally I’d want as little interference between the languages as possible.
These are just manual mappings, so super easy to have language specific. I agree with Myria that people who aren’t experienced with CEFR (i.e. have studied romance languages) probably have little conception of what they mean. The government tests have specific standards and, in general, the specific language communities have an already developed sense of what their test numbers mean.
If it were a big issue to have different ones for each language, it might be a consideration… but not a big issue
Considering that the CEFR is generally used in Europe, it’s not too helpful when a majority of languages or the countries associated with them do have their own levels for their own proficiency exams. It’s more helpful in the longrun to keep the JLPT tags for the Japanese books because for those who aren’t European (or whose country doesn’t subscribed to that framework), the A1-C2 levels mean absolutely nothing. At least the JLPT is consistent no matter which country.
Like @Myria, I’d definitely find it confusing for it to be on there. It’s similar to when people ask me what my CEFR level is and I tell them that I’m not European, so I’m not studying with that frame/goal in mind. I’m studying with the proficiency exam involving my language in mind. Even for Korean, a lot of books will label it with what TOPIK level it will correspond to because it was created by Korea.
There seems to be misconceptions about what the CEFR actually is, so let me explain: the CEFR is simply a system used to divide language proficiency into levels. A common way of breaking down proficiency in any skill is beginner, intermediate, and advanced. The CEFR takes it a step further:
It has nothing to do with exams or European languages. It’s merely a description of one’s proficiency in a language, which is why it has such a broad area of application, unlike language-specific language exams. All it means to pass a certain level in a language exam, is that you passed that level in the language exam. It has surprisingly little to do with actual language ability. This also has other implications, such as language exam levels not being a very good indicator of the level of media, which further gives sort of a false promise that if you if you passed a given exam level, you should expect to handle media tagged with that level. This will inevitably lead to people going in with such an expectation, only to be overwhelmingly crushed by it.
Ultimately, I simply meant to make a suggestion that, if you are going to use a system for breaking down language ability into levels, why not just use arguably the most widely used system in the world, which is also language-independent? Easy to implement, and users only have to get used to one system once, assuming they are not already familiar with it. I obviously don’t know what it looks like from the implementer’s side of things, but I figured the input could be worth communicating, and then brandon can consider whether that has a place in his vision or not.
Yes! That’s a totally reasonable view point and I appreciate the feedback. I’ve thought about just doing the CEFR levels and perhaps may change my mind in the future after more languages are added - it’s a good suggestion.
I don’t disagree that language proficiency tests are not a great marker of proficiency (JLPT requires no speaking… really??), but I think they’re the only standard that most people in a language community know.
CEFR is a generalized framework with generalized descriptions for each of those levels… but those generalized descriptions are of course fuzzy too.
Nothing is really perfect here… many people have suggested I ditch the JLPT mappings entirely. But, don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘good’ as they say… and users, especially new ones, get a lot of value out of the mappings, flawed as they might be.
And I do think they’re pretty good suggestion as is.
N2 being (in part) A2 just sounds so funny
I guess another point against CEFR here is that one of the reasons the JLPT compares so badly is the missing speaking and writing components, which is not something you actually need for reading books.
I definitely agree that N1 is nowhere near C2, especially when taking production into account. But passing N1 does prove quite a high reading comprehension ability in my opinion.
But maybe you wouldn’t even have to directly map the N levels onto CEFR.
Another option would of course be to get rid of the „N“ labels when you hover over the book level, and only in the „About“ section go into more detail which level would correspond (roughly) to which JLPT level. In the same table, it would be quite easy to add a CEFR column as well without cluttering.
In that sense I think I actually agree with @Arctagon, just that maybe instead of using a framework not everyone might be familiar with directly in the tags, using descriptors like „upper intermediate“ would be my preferred approach (with more information in the About section).
This way you also remove the disappointment of „why is this N2 Level book so difficult even though I passed N2?“
Which is what B2 would be, by the way. At least, I did pass the N1 when I was definitely still (low) B2, which is why their chart makes sense to me. I still feel like someone who got the N1 with like 90% should be considered C1, though.
By the way, every book was too difficult for me after I passed N2 I sincerely think people are amazing for reading novels at that level.
Fair enough I only started reading my first book a few months before I took N1, so I can relate. Thinking back on it, my reading comprehension probably did not exceed B2 level either
I use the JLPT system to guide my gradings and reviews. I guess I never asked about it, but I’ve been assuming that ideally Natively will be useful to as many learners as possible, and that this includes people following a traditional curriculum at school.
Schools all over the world use textbooks designed to follow the JLPT system, and there are specific sets of kanji, vocabulary, and grammar patterns expected for each level. The JLPT organization no longer publishes official lists since the change to the N~ system, but aside from N3 which is new, the other levels still map fairly well to the lists from the old system. The people who’ve taken classes at language schools or university (or even followed a textbook course faithfully) are pretty consistent not only in how their abilities are balanced, but even to which specific kanji and grammar patterns they know.
Language schools prepare their students for the JLPT with these kinds of numbers
N5: 100 kanji
N4: 300 kanji
N3: 650 kanji
N2: 1,000 kanji
N1: 2,000 kanji
In other words, if a book has 1300 kanji and no furigana, traditionally taught students at N3 level can’t read it. For that matter, the N2 students might have a rough time too.
I, like @Naphthalene, found novels too difficult after passing N2. But I did it anyway, at a huge cost. Nobody was giving recommendations that were appropriate for my level (or gender), so I chose my own material and made some big mistakes. I read a couple of children’s books that were really hard, and then grownup books which were WAY too hard, pushing myself as much as I could. After a year of this, I was much better at reading and also so burnt out that I gave up on fiction for years. My Bookmeter account is 12 years old and there’s a 10 year gap in the middle. If it wasn’t for covid closing the borders so that I could no longer visit Japan and get practice/maintenance chances, I might never have picked up another book or manga in Japanese again. I wish something like Natively had existed so that my experiences could have been easier.
I can really relate to that. A lot of things I have seen strongly recommended online turned out to be aimed at a different demographic than my own. That was fine at first, but it grew old quite fast.
That’s where I stopped at the time. I read the first volume of the children edition of 獣の奏者 (which took me 6 months at the time) and tried to read 楽しいムーミン一家 but gave up. I only really started reading books when I got near N1. Manga, on the other hand, where fine as early as N4 (well, that was series dependent though)
Generally speaking, I feel like the relative ranking on Natively (level) is more important than the N something equivalent.
I tend to filter out the ungraded books when I do that by the way, since they are pretty noisy when sorting by difficulty.
. I’d love to make ‘exclude temporary ratings’ default and only remove that when doing a text search, but that also is somewhat complicated.
I would personally have N1 encroach into C1
I sincerely think people are amazing for reading novels at that level.
