Overworld art update (nameplates!) and resuming our regular adventure content release schedule

Guess what? It's the weekend! What better way to start the weekend than by releasing a new update? 🥳

Overworld Art Update

We've just released an updated version of our overworld map to celebrate! We've added nameplates to all the regions, so it's easier to find them and remember their names. We think they look great and hope you do too!

Here's a small preview of what it now looks like:

We've also added some additional padding at the top on mobile phones so that the navbar doesn't overlay some of the art. This also goes for the region pages where you can find the lessons.

You might also notice that some islands have moved around. We did this to better fit the screen and make them align a bit better (e.g. Introduction is now opposite of Expert)

New Adventure Levels

Next to this, we're back to our regular release schedule of 7 levels per 2 weeks! We hope you enjoyed your small break from new grammar lessons while we worked on getting the initial grammar library content out there, as things are about to get hard fun again!

Coming Up Soon

We're currently working on the Grammar SRS, Mock Exams, and Premade Native Material Study Lists, and making some sweet, sweet progress! I'd say the Grammar SRS is nearly ready to go for the first initial batch (we'll be releasing items alongside grammar point breakdowns in the grammar library).

With that in mind, we're likely also launching MaruMori "for real" soon (bye-bye Beta!) and will be holding a very special promotion to go along with that! More info soon!

The Grammar Library has been added!

Another major feature release coming in hot! Introducing the Grammar Library!

Some of you might've already seen part of it if you explored one of our latest features (you could already go there by clicking on a grammar point in an example sentence breakdown). But now we're ready to release it for everyone!

The Grammar Library

So, what exactly is this Grammar Library? It's our final name for something we previously referenced as the Grammar Database or Grammar Index.

It's also where you will be able to find and reference any grammar point, get a reminder of how it worked through a concise breakdown, find links to related grammar points, view example sentences and of course find out where in our adventure region we dedicate a full lesson to explaining the grammar in great detail.

You can find it by hovering/tapping "Resources" in the navbar at the top.

Here's how it looks:

Overview of all Grammar Points

Example Search

Example Grammar Point Details Page

We hope that this will make it a lot easier for everyone to search for (unknown) grammar points and get a quick reminder of what they entail, see examples, and do further reading.

Once Grammar SRS gets added in the coming weeks, you'll also be able to quickly view which grammar point you know and don't know yet.

Right now about 45 items have breakdowns with example sentences, and all current grammar lessons in Adventure have been added as links to the corresponding grammar points in the Library. In the coming weeks, we'll be working on writing more and more of these breakdowns, example sentences, and other info until we get to the point where we catch up to our currently available adventure lessons. After that, we will be releasing new breakdowns in tandem with our grammar lessons

Keep up the studying!

Example Sentences with full breakdown tooltips, MaruMori Discord Bot and more!

Today's update brings you two big new features along with a few smaller improvements. Let's get into it!

Example Sentence & Full Breakdown Tooltips

As part of our work for the Grammar Library (likely also releasing this week!!) and Example Sentence Database we've added the first 400 or so Example Sentences to the dictionary pages.

Each sentence has a translation and a full breakdown of vocabulary, kanji, and grammar points used in the sentence. Just click anywhere on the Japanese text and it will show you exactly which vocabulary, kanji, grammar point, and even which conjugated form it is. From there you can also immediately add it to your personal study lists or go to the corresponding detail page.

Here's a small gif to show how it works!

Note that not every dictionary entry has example sentences yet. These are being added continuously as we keep curating sentences in our CMS. In the near future, we will likely add huge amounts of sentences and make it clear which ones are already checked/curated by us (to make sure they are correct and good to learn with), and which still have to be checked. More on that later!

MaruMori Discord Bot

We now have our very own MaruMori Discord bot! This bot is active on the MaruMori discord (come join us!) but can also be added to your own servers.

MaruBot has a few slash commands you can put in chat to do certain things:

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  /vocabulary & /kanji - This works exactly like the on-site dictionary search. You can put in any search prompt to search and then go through the results, with a handy button to immediately add them to your favorite study list. You can input English, kanji, kana, or romaji to search, just like at the regular MM dictionary search.

  
  
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  /share - This drops your customized profile image and a link to your profile page in the chat. This too requires you to link your account.

  
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  /verify - MM Discord Only - This command gives you your Lifetime/Early Panda roles on our Discord if you linked your Discord account to MM (on the settings page). There's also a role for when you have Kitsun Lifetime too!

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  /help - Show you an overview of commands with descriptions.

Next to this, MaruBot also gives you special roles if you react to the rules message with the corresponding buttons. These roles are used to keep you up to date with MM in whichever category you prefer (all announcements, important only, features only, content only)

We'll be expanding the functionality of MaruBot as we go (oh hey there, grammar point lookups), but it already gives you a quick way to search for anything and add the results to your personal study lists!

Other Improvements

We also have other smaller improvements in this update:

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  Modals - All modals now have a better color overlay in dark-theme.

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  SRS Reviews - Fixed an issue where mastered items showed up in reviews and review counts on other pages.

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  Achievements - All achievements now have descriptions!

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  Safari - Fixed an issue with Safari 16.4 on MacOS not scrolling after navigating from adventure pages.

New JLPT Study Lists, new features and new (art) teasers!

Hey! A new update went live bringing with it some new features, study lists, bugfixes, changes and new content. We've also got a few teasers of what's coming up! Let's dive into it:

New Content

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  We've published new JLPT Study Lists. Two for each JLPT Level (N5-N1). One for Kanji and one for Vocabulary. You can find them in the JLPT category of the premade study lists page (click on "Get More" on your study list page).

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  A new batch of Apprentice levels has been added according to our bi-weekly schedule. Meaning 5 new grammar lessons, 1 new unlocks batch and 1 new reading exercise are now available. Go get 'em!

New Features

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  Navigation - The nav bar has been reworked a bit to prepare for the addition of the Grammar Index. There is now a "Resources" dropdown where "Tools" used to be.

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  Dictionary - We now have a "start" page for the dictionary which shows you a few ways how you can search through MM's dictionary.

Bug Fixes

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  Dictionary - Details Page - No longer incorrectly shows a correct percentage of 100% when some conditions are met.

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  SRS Lessons - Fixed an issue with duplicate lessons.

Coming Up

The Grammar Index pages are ready to go! We're just working on the initial content for them. As soon as we have 20 grammar point breakdowns ready along with example sentences, we'll be putting it all live!

All items will already have a link to the corresponding grammar lesson if it exists, list related grammar, and possibly have example sentences linked to them, making it easy to look up where we explain a certain grammar point in detail, even if we might not have a breakdown for them in the grammar index yet. We'll be adding those in the coming weeks until we get to a point where we catch up with our current available grammar lesson content.

The new region (Jungle of Tenacity, aka N3) artwork is looking absolutely fantastic! Our Illustrator is now working on the animations and we've been figuring out a way to load in the whole region without crashing your phones. The new region will be 11x3 pieces of artwork, compare that to the N5 region (3x3) and you can probably imagine how big it is!

Here's a new teaser!

Crossword Puzzles, new content, reworked kana drills and more!

Time for another update! This time we bring you a new minigame to help you train your vocabulary in a fun way.

Crossword Puzzles

That's right, you can now enjoy crossword puzzles in Japanese! They work as usual, except you must now answer in Japanese rather than English. This means you get an English prompt, which also trains you in a different aspect of learning than the usual SRS reviews do.

Here's an image to show you what it looks like:

Click on a tile to see the prompt (you can click multiple times in case there are multiple prompts for that tile) and its corresponding tiles get highlighted.

When you fill in an answer, it will show either red or green letters right away, indicating whether you answered correctly or wrongly:

Once all the tiles are green, you win and you can generate a new puzzle right away, or select a different difficulty level and give that a shot. That's right, infinite crossword puzzles!

As for difficulty levels, we currently have:

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  N5

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  N4

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  N3

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  N2

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  N1

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  MM Adventure unlock batches 1-10

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  MM Adventure unlock batches 11-20

With possibly more coming in the future (e.g. concept groups like animal names) 🤩

We've also made it so you can quit at any time and when you come back to the page (on the same browser), it will ask you if you want to continue your last session or generate a new puzzle.

Other things

As usual, the new batch of levels for the adventure regions also just went live. But we also sneaked in a few more small features and bugfixes:

New Features

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  The roadmap page now has status indicators indicating which points have been completed, which are currently being worked on, and which haven't been started yet.

  
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  The Kana Drills have been reworked! There are now multiple stages rather than one big session. Each question type now has its own stage, after which you have a small break and the next stage starts. This should make it feel a lot easier to work through.

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  Next to this, we're going to be removing the audio stage from the kana drill exercises in the first adventure region and make them shorter in general. If you still feel a bit shaky after doing them, you can always do more drills (including audio drills) by repeating the level or by going to the kana drills on the tools page.

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  Kana Drills - We've also added hotkeys for the multiple-choice answers! You can now press 1-2-3-4 to choose the corresponding answer.

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  Wordle - The hints layout has changed. It now also shows the remaining characters and had its order changed a bit.

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  Personal Synonyms & Notes Modal - Now displays which item you are editing.

Bugfixes:

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  SRS Lessons - Pressing the left-arrow hotkey at the first lesson no longer breaks the page.

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  SRS Lessons & Reviews - Lightning Mode button now registers your click/tap on the button, rather than only on the icon itself.