A soft reset is where you are starting your game, you choose your starter, and when you do
your fist battle if it isnt shiny you restart your game system.

Thanks! I hope i get a shiny snivy! Oh and do you think i should go with snivy? I was just
wondering. I think snivy would be perfect for me since i heard it had great speed since i
love pokemon teams with speedy pokemon in them.

It's a way to get shiny pokemon(mainly legendaries). You have to press l+r+start+select if
the pokemon you want isn't shiny. The game will reset without having to put off your ds.
This saves time and you'll be able to do many resets if you really want to get a shiny.

Note:this method can take a very,very long time,no matter how lucky you are.