[Course Forum] Duolingo Swedish by sustained (originally: hrothbert)

Community-Created Courses Swedish
,
1

Report errors, ask questions, make suggestions and all of that here, I guess, since they took away our forums. >_>

2

In Level 24, there is a misspelling for the english translation of “en vĂ„ning”. It says “a storey of a building” instead of “a story of a building”

3

I believe “storey” is the British spelling of “story.” In other Memrise courses you will find other examples such as “colour” and words such as “jumper” (which is known as “sweater” in American English.) // Hope that helps!

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4

Thanks, I know about the other British spelling types and I’m fine with them. I just never saw ‘storey’ used before hence my confusion.

5

Hej,

I noticed a wrong adjective on Level 93:

It is “ett slöseri” instead of “en sölseri”.

Best, David

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6

There seems to be a problem with “att ha rĂ€tt/fel” in Adjectives 1
Whenever I have to do the sentence in a tapping test, “rĂ€tt” is marked as wrong, although I’m 100% sure I didn’t make a mistake there.

7

Life has gotten in the way of language learning and maintaining this course, amongst other things, for a little while now but I hope to start working on it again. Especially since the Duolingo Swedish 2.0 course is not going to be ready until 2017 at the very earliest.

I’ll try to fix the above errors soon.

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8

hello! why is “a” sometimes accepted when it should be â€œĂ„â€, and sometimes not? that’s a little confusing. is it something that can be fixed? best, jul

9

Hi there!

One thing I’ve noticed that keeps throwing me off is that both “en anledning” and “en orsak” have the same clue, “a reason, cause”. I never know which one it’s looking for, and so I have to guess and half the time I get it wrong. So of course, I get tested repeatedly on these two words in the Review process, even though I know them quite well.

Could you maybe differentiate the two somehow?

Thanks!

2 Likes
10

Ah, I didn’t see this
 ever since Memrise hid the forums away I don’t really bother to use them because no one even seems to know that they exist.

I have a spreadsheet full of issues that I’ve been collecting over the last few days, now that I’ve started studying again and using my course regularly. I added yours to it and I’ll fix these soon.

Congratulations on claiming issue #107. :sweat:

3 Likes
11

The forums are getting more and more traffic, thank goodness, but the percentage of users who know about them probably still is very small.

Here is how I have defined “en anledning” in the first part of the 8,000+ Most Common Swedish Words course:

41

And here is “en orsak”:

36

Just in case this might be helpful for you 


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12

Hmm. Feels a little bit like an advertisement for your own course more than anything else to be completely honest, haha although I’m quite cynical. :stuck_out_tongue:

Besides, finding definitions online isn’t really a problem (although I guess turning that into a good prompt can be), but I suppose I’ll thank you anyway?

And here’s a tip for you in return - such long definitions don’t help anyone. They make remembering vocabulary items way way more difficult and recalling them at a prompt take much longer. It merely becomes information overload, as I’ve come to learn.

I’m actually going to be shortening some of my longer definitions considerably on the new course I’m working on. Instead, extra information will be hidden away in expandable section (show more/less) much like the synonyms and such already are. Including examples and stuff.

I kind of like this [ingen ~] thing (so the use of the tilde) to represent “ingen orsak” but honestly, it’s just more symbols
 more information
 more things for the brain to parse for each and every initial planting
 and each and every prompt. I’m going to instead have example fields and then “ingen orsak” would be one of the example for “en orsak”.

Honestly, I feel like the definitions being the most common translation is probably best? So then -

“en anledning” - “a reason”
“en orsak” - “a cause, grounds”

Then users can simply learn that these are synonymous themselves. And if the synonym field is set to always-show then that will be quite easy for them.

The issue is stuff like “ett skĂ€l” which most often translates to either “a reason” or “a cause, grounds”
 it’s just not an easy thing, at all. I’ve done a lot of thinking about this whole thing, trust me.

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13

But yeah, to everyone else - I’m actually working on a new, improved course based on everything I have learnt from developing this and other Memrise (and non-Memrise) study materials.

There are actually a ton of issues with this course:

  • The synonyms, antonyms and “see also” fields don’t even work on mobile (this is entirely a Memrise issue
).
  • Missing attributes (in some cases even part of speech is missing) for a fair amount of items.
  • Inconsistencies in the conventions I developed to do with things like part of speech.
  • Overly long or merely confusing prompts, especially when it comes to synonymous words/phrases.
  • Inconsistencies in synonyms being accepted as alternate answers.
  • Overall inconsistencies with synonyms/antonyms in general (they’re often missing).
  • Complete lack of pronunciation keys.
  • TTS audio (I’m going to record it all this time).
  • No examples.

I plan to fix all of these issues in my next attempt. Not only that but I intend to take vocabulary (and ideas) from the best Duolingo trees (German, Norwegian etc.) and combine those with my own ideas that I’ve been developing, as well as ideas from other courses elsewhere on the internet (and even off of it) and attempt to create some kind of comprehensive Swedish course which should cover the needs of everyone.

And if it doesn’t, well, the mere act of creating these courses helps me learn the language and I kind of enjoy it so


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14
  1. Changed the English prompt for att ta slut to “to run out, come to an end” (avoiding confusion with “sluta”, “avsluta”).
  2. Changed the prompts for ett ... till to “
 till” and “more/another 
” respectively.
    1. “en 
 till”; “ett 
 till”; “en till”; “ett till” etc. will still be accepted as translations.
    2. Additionally, “till” is accepted too, now.
  3. Added various synonyms as accepted answers for att trÀnga.
  4. Added the missing indefinite article for the English prompt for ett skydd.
    1. Also shortened the translation a little, removing a few perhaps unnecessary synonymous translations.
  5. Added â€œĂ¶vervaka”; “vakta” as accepted answers for att bevaka.
  6. Changed the English prompt for att viga to “to marry, consecrate”.
    1. Added “inviga” as an accepted answer.
  7. Added “gnata” as an accepted answer for att tjata.
  8. Added “rörig” as an accepted answer for stökig.
  9. Changed the English prompt for att falla to “to fall, drop; to fall over, trip, stumble”.
    1. Added “ramla” as an accepted answer.
  10. Changed the English prompt for att behandla to "to treat, handle, attend , deal ".
    1. Added “sköta”; “avhandla” as accepted answers.
  11. Added “purpur” as an accepted answer for lila.
  12. Added “en Ă€ktenskap”; “en vigsel”; “ett giftermĂ„l” as accepted answers for ett bröllop.
  13. Changed the English prompt for fin to “fine, good, nice” (the cognate “fine” was missing and should be first).
  14. Cleared up confusion with jag tittar versus jag tittar pÄ.
    1. Removed the phrasal verb entry (NOT a partikelverb - merely a verb and preposition combination).
    2. Changed the Swedish prompt to “jag tittar <pĂ„>”.
    3. Changed the English prompt to "I watch, look "
    4. Added “jag tittar pĂ„â€; “jag tittar” as accepted answers.
  15. Changed the English prompt for att tĂ€nka to “to think, ponder, imagine; to plan to”.
    1. Added “att planera” as an accepted answer (plan to).
  16. Removed seemingly unnecessary prepositions in the Swedish prompt for jag tÀnker.
    1. Changed the translation to “I think, ponder, imagine; I plan to”.
  17. Changed the English prompt for tydligt to “clearly, plainly”.
    1. Added “klart” as an accepted answer.
  18. Added [location] and [direction] markers to adverbs of motion/location, wherever they were missing.
  19. Changed the English prompt for troligen to “{believably}, probably, very likely”
    1. Added “troligtvis”; “förmodligen”, “antagligen” and so on as accepted answers.
  20. Added “en pub”; “en krog” as accepted answers for en bar.
  21. Removed incorrect antonyms from hem and hemma and added additional missing [location] and [direction] markers.
  22. Added “en fasa”; “en fruktan”; “en rĂ€dsla” as accepted answers for en skrĂ€ck.
  23. Added “genast”; “omedelbart” as accepted answers for direkt.
  24. Added “sinnesjuk”; “galen”; "tokig as accepted answers for “vansinnig”.
    1. Also added missing accepted answers for sinnesjuk.
  25. Added missing part of speech for i slutet and till slut.
  26. Added “emellertid”; â€œĂ€ndĂ„â€; “likvĂ€l” as accepted answers for dock.
  27. An attempt at improving the prompts for allför was made

    1. Added accepted answers as/where necessary.
  28. Changed the English prompt for en massa to “a mass; a mass/large amount 
”
  29. Added missing part of speech for sÄ snart som möjligt.
  30. Added “synbarligen”; “skenbart” as accepted answers for till synes.
  31. Added “slutligen”; “i slutet” as accepted answers for till slut.
  32. Addded “till exempel” (and shortened variants) as accepted answers for exempelvis.
  33. Added “rimligen” as an accepted answer for rimligtvis.
  34. Added missing part of speech to lite grann.
    1. Added “litegrann”; “litet grann”; “lite grand”; “litet grand” as accepted answers.
  35. Added “gömd” as an accepted answer for dold.
  36. Changed the prompt for en dom to “a {doom}; a conviction, judgement, verdict; (a) doomsday” (cognates should be first).
  37. Added “en fruktan”; “en rĂ€dsla”; “en skrĂ€ck” as accepted answers for en fasa.
  38. Added â€œĂ¶vertala” as an accepted answer for att övertyga and vice versa.
  39. Added “att byta”; “att byta ut”; “att utbyta” as accepted answers for att vĂ€xla.
  40. Added “att krypa” as an accepted answer for att smyga and vice versa.
  41. Changed the prompt for ett skrĂ€p to “(a) {scrap}, garbage, junk” (cognates should be first).
  42. Added “att bryta av” as an accepted answers att avbryta and vice versa.
  43. Added “att bryta” as an accepted answer for att slĂ„ sönder.
  44. Added “en gĂ„va” as an accepted answer for en present.
  45. Added “oĂ€ndlig” as an accepted answer for grĂ€nslös and vice versa.
  46. Added “ytterligare” as an accepted answer for vidare.
  47. Added “direkt”; “genast” as accepted answers for omedelbart.
  48. Added “dock”; “likvĂ€l”; â€œĂ€ndĂ„â€ as accepted answers for emellertid.
  49. Added “givetvis”; “sjĂ€lvklart”; “naturligtvis” as accepted answers for förstĂ„s.
    1. Changed the English prompt to “{understandably}, of course, naturally” (cognates should be first).
  50. Added “ett företag” as an accepted answer for en firma.
  51. Added “en publik” as an accepted answer for en allmĂ€nhet.
  52. Added “knepig”; “besvĂ€rlig”; “komplicerad”; “invecklad” as accepted answers for “krĂ„nglig”.
  53. Changed the prompt for en orsak to “a cause/grounds; a reason”.
  54. Changed the prompt for en anledning to “a reason; a cause/grounds”.
  55. Added “skön”; “ljuvlig”; “underbar”; “förtjusande” as accepted answers for hĂ€rlig.
  56. Changed the prompt for bakĂ„t to “backwards, to(wards) the rear”.
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15

Is that a bad thing? :slight_smile:

And it isn’t “my” course, by the way, either. The user who calls himself “sehiralti” created the course; I am merely a lowly course contributor that has been maintaining the course for the last couple of years.

So gracious :smiley:

I disagree :smiley:

I just borrowed that convention from “regular” dictionaries; it’s a common method used to save space. Anybody that is familiar with dictionaries will be familiar with this symbol and won’t find it annoying, IMHO.

You kind of like it, but then you don’t 
 LOL :smiley:

My solution for “ett skĂ€l” looks like this:

06

My observation of language learners (I teach English as a foreign language here in Germany) is that people often like to learn a particular phrase to go with a new word, apart from anything else, if there is a noun or an irregular verb to learn, if you learn a phrase that includes the grammar that goes with the new word - in this case, that “skĂ€l” is an “ett” word - then you not only learn a new word, but you remember its gender and have a useful phrase that you can put into practice straight away.

I really don’t see what’s not to like about this method of disambiguation :smiley:
Seeing as “ett skĂ€l” is an “ett” word, the prompt immediately excludes “en orsak” and “en anledning”.

Oh, and by the way, “en anledning” is used to mean “an occasion” quite often, too, from my reading of Swedish so far.

I am also well aware that this is not an easy thing, which is why I wrote my post including some of the ways I have tried to solve this problem. Sure, I wanted to advertise “my” course - and why not? there is no competition here, we just all want to learn Swedish :smiley: - but I also wanted to share my solutions because, like you, I spent a lot of time pondering the problem before I came up with the solutions I have found. I started using the sehiralti four-part course just over three years ago now, and noticed a lot of frustrating false synonyms quite soon which I was able to notify him of quite easily in the old forums. And then, when he realized that I knew what I was talking about, he allowed me to be a course contributor, which was about two years ago.

My main purpose, though, in responding to this post was to offer some possibly new ideas for dealing with the pesky synonym problem.

I didn’t mean to tread on your toes or offend you.

16

Wow! You have been busy!

17

Can you add a link to the course, please?

18

Is that a bad thing? :slight_smile:

I suppose not, actually!

And it isn’t “my” course, by the way, either. The user who calls himself “sehiralti” created the course; I am merely a lowly course contributor that has been maintaining the course for the last couple of years.

Haha, exactly the same situation that I found myself in. I think hrothbert did the first like 15-20 levels (but this way back when there were no synonyms; antonyms; no audio) and then the rest is my handiwork.

I disagree :smiley:

Right, well, are you going to explain that? I feel like when it comes to the speedy acquisition and recall of vocabulary, at least, that these long prompts don’t help whatsoever. I’m not saying that the information shouldn’t be there at all, don’t misinterpret me, I’m saying that it shouldn’t be in the PROMPT.

The prompt which is, you know, supposed to prompt the brain to recall information, quickly and efficiently - it’s not supposed to prompt the brain to read and decipher a short novel first. Also with no control over line-wrapping/breaking, these long prompts not only look awful but are also difficult to read, especially on mobile.

I just borrowed that convention from “regular” dictionaries; it’s a common method used to save space. Anybody that is familiar with dictionaries will be familiar with this symbol and won’t find it annoying, IMHO.

Hmm, I’ve probably seen it too
 I must have - I’ve definitely used dictionaries before. I guess I don’t use them particularly often! I mostly use online resources.

You kind of like it, but then you don’t 
 LOL :smiley:

Yes, I am an enigma of a man.

My observation of language learners (I teach English as a foreign language here in Germany) is that people often like to learn a particular phrase to go with a new word, apart from anything else, if there is a noun or an irregular verb to learn, if you learn a phrase that includes the grammar that goes with the new word - in this case, that “skĂ€l” is an “ett” word - then you not only learn a new word, but you remember its gender and have a useful phrase that you can put into practice straight away.

Yes, learning phrases along with vocabulary seems like a great idea - I’m not contesting that, as it likely is.

I really don’t see what’s not to like about this method of disambiguation :smiley:
Seeing as “ett skĂ€l” is an “ett” word, the prompt immediately excludes “en orsak” and “en anledning”.

True
 in this case. Most words are utrum though, so most often this won’t apply.

Oh, and by the way, “en anledning” is used to mean “an occasion” quite often, too, from my reading of Swedish so far.

I read a lot of Swedish and it seems rather rare that it’s used to mean that in my experience
 shrug.

I am also well aware that this is not an easy thing, which is why I wrote my post including some of the ways I have tried to solve this problem.

Yeah and I do appreciate that.

Sure, I wanted to advertise “my” course - and why not? there is no competition here, we just all want to learn Swedish :smiley: -

Life is not treating me especially kindly as of late and yesterday was especially stressful, so I’m just on the edge and that will be apparent that in my writing. I’m not trying to be hostile.

but I also wanted to share my solutions because, like you, I spent a lot of time pondering the problem before I came up with the solutions I have found. I started using the sehiralti four-part course just over three years ago now, and noticed a lot of frustrating false synonyms quite soon which I was able to notify him of quite easily in the old forums. And then, when he realized that I knew what I was talking about, he allowed me to be a course contributor, which was about two years ago.

Yeah, I need to think about the synonym thing more for the next course I plan to make and I’ll take what you’ve said into account.

But given that the synonyms for this course are all images that were generated by a script I wrote, which I lost when my old computer died and given that this image approach has major issues (the images don’t even load on mobile - blame Memrise), even if it is very pretty (complete control over text formatting, bold, italics, monospaced fonts/alignment, line-breaking)
 I mean, it’s going to be so much work to fix this course.

I don’t really feel like manually uploading thousands of images. Again. Just to fix some synonym issues. I feel like using images was a huge mistake (just like Memrise not letting us use bloody line-breaks or text formatting in the attributes and fields is a huge and very lazy mistake
) and one that would be very hard to fix.

Wow! You have been busy!

Just a few issues I noticed over the last week while I’ve been using the course actively. But as I said above, I think this course is beyond saving due to the whole debacle with Memrise not letting us use text formatting thus me turning to generated images


Can you add a link to the course, please?

Yeah.

1 Like
19

Level 96

  • “krĂ€ftlös” needs to be changed to “kraftlös”

  • “avskydvĂ€rd” needs to be changed to “avskyvĂ€rd”

20

Good to know! :smiley:

Thanks

I hope things improve for you. Life is not kind sometimes.