Oftentimes I’ll add a new course for the language I’m learning and it will start off with the same basic words that I know very well—hello, good bye, please, thank you, etc.
I’d like to have the ability to skip over words by proving I already know them. I imagine it would work like this:
I click a “test out” or “I already know these words” button for a level
I’m prompted to type the German/Spanish/whatever translation, just like the final step when learning a new word (when the flower blossoms)
If I get it right, the word is treated as being in longterm memory, as if I went through the usual 5-6 attempts at answering
If I get it wrong, I am taught the word just like any other word (i.e. I go through 5-6 rounds of growing the flower to full bloom)
I don’t like to ignore words because A) I don’t want to skip them forever, I just don’t want to type it in several times in a single lesson to prove I know it; and B) it’s tedious; and C) I might think I know a word/phrase better than I really do, so I ought to be tested on it first.
DuoLingo has a feature similar to this. If you just happen to know, for example, medical terminology, then there’s no reason to re-type the word several times. Once is enough.
There were auto ignore some time ago last year for sure. It was taken down, maybe it didn’t work well or for some other reason. This feature ignored all eords that you already had learnt.
If you are using app it’s very easy to ignore words on the go while learning or reviewing, (on left top corner tap on 3 dots and then ignore.) The word/entry will disappear and you can continue your thing
I don’t want to ignore the words. When you ignore a word it will never appear again. I want these words to be categorized as “in long-term memory”, like other words, so that I will be re-tested on them occasionally. If I ignore them, there’s a chance I may forget them if I don’t periodically see them during review sessions.
What I’m trying to avoid is answering several questions about the word just to prove that I know it. It’s tedious to go through several lessons when you’re not learning anything new.
Perhaps I’ll write a userscript that prompts you on the first learning screen and then automatically chooses the correct option each time the word appears after that…
Bumping this thread because that would be very useful. I’m studying French now and my actual level doesn’t correspond to the one in Memrise, so I have to mindlessly go through words I already know until I reach those that are new, so Memrise isn’t quite helpful at this stage
I don’t really get your problem… you learn the respective words in one course, and ignore them in all others. Of course you will be promoted to review those words in the course you learnt.
I don’t think the issue is a problem for folks who have only used Memrise to learn a language. Like you said, they can just ignore the words in the new deck that overlap with the ones from their old deck. However, if you already have some level of knowledge of a language when you start using Memrise then there’s no other deck for you to review.
For example, I took 2 years of Japanese in college. It’s been several years and now I’ve come to Memrise so that I can review some grammar that I’ve forgotten, but my only options are to either first go through a bunch of grammar I don’t need to review or create my own deck that contains only the grammar points I need to review.
I like this idea. Allow users to take something like a “speed review” or “classic review” of an entire course immediately and mark off the ones they get correct as already being learned.
I think some of the difficulty comes in course organization. The chronology by which you learn words is something decided by the course creator, it’s not randomized and thrown together into a dictionary that you learn in whatever order.
So let’s say you take this placement test of sorts and it finds you know 670/2300 words. Unfortunately, the words you know are scattered. So for example you know 19/25 words in lesson 1, 22/25 words in lesson 2, 15/25 words in lesson 3, etc. It would make for a strange learning schedule after you start the course.
I suppose if this feature was added, Memrise could also create functionality to allow you to do just the unique characters in the lesson you haven’t learned.
I think some of the specifics would need to be ironed out, but I’m overall in favor of your idea!
This is possible, but usually not the case. Usually a learner know virtually all words of some lower levels, and none of the words of the higher levels. From an educational perspective you could put the cut off point at 80% (need to know in order skip). Then set the review timer on skipped level. For example last skipped level at 1 day, 2nd last at 2 and so on.
And yes, I would use (and pay for) the Memrise created courses if there was a ‘test out’ feature, a ‘placement test’. Any professional language school has that - and I think Memrise is becoming quite professional.
I just skimmed through the comments quickly but surely the ignore button is adequate. If you go to the list of material for each level on your first visit you can read through them all and click out those you feel you know well enough.
It seems unnecesary to the big picture of learning a language to expect the program to check and prod you to that extent and instead you may end up just fulfilling a need to make yourself too sure you know what you know.
This is actually the reason I dip out of one program “WanKani” to work on the same material in Memrise. Just too much control over what and when to learn it.
Perhaps another program has a usual feature to test you months later on old study material but as for me I would just as well ignore it I had already been going over it for a while. There is plenty else to learnand like one user said, keep practicing it on your original course if it exists there on memrise.
It’s liberating to let stuff go and move on to something new and if you are concerned in the future just go back over all the things you ignored to see if there is anything you need to put back into review.
of course, if the course creators would use the existing entries in the database instead of creating new ones for the same words then Memrise automatically recognises that you learned these entries before… (and yes, some do!)
But the op doesn’t want the words ignored. They want them to come up in reviews, and ignored words don’t do that.
It would be very cool to have some kind of placement test like I’ve seen on other sites, but the op’s idea is best: test out of what you know, but it shows up in the reviews (and all you don’t know is in the lessons, to learn).
This thread is pretty old. In case you haven’t noticed, you can use a user script to at least quickly “fully learn” words that you already know and that you still want to be tested on.
See my posting here .