This is the interactive forum page for all courses created by @pdao. If you have any questions, comments or concerns about any of my courses, please post them here. When you do, it would be very helpful if you could please remember to include the following information so I can better respond to you:
What is the name of the course
What is the level that has the issue or question (if you remember it)
What is the nature of the issue or question that needs attention
If you don’t remember the name of the course you are responding about, you can find a complete listing of my courses here:
Hi @Pdao
I’m doing your Famous Dead People course - great course, by the way - and I’ve noticed a typo on Level 2 Actors: I believe a name should be Herbert Lom not Hebert Lom - ie two 'r’s in Herbert.
Rgds
Albo
@albo2albo ~ thanks for the response, and for taking the course. I made the correction. If you are using an app version I believe you will have to delete it and re-load it to see the change. It is visible on the web version now. (And btw, I loved Herbert Lom in the old “Pink Panther” movies !)
As for the course, I am going to add a few more items, and then probably have to split it to a second course after about 1,500 items. It is taking longer to load, so I can ease that burden with a second course. I’m not sure what it will be called, but I will probably put a blurb about it in a “read me” multimedia level.
Please let me know if there are any other correctional opportunities with this course, and best of luck to you with your studies, besides just on this course.
@pdao - yes, Herbert Lom played the part magnificently, as did the rest of the cast, Peter Sellers and Burt Kwouk (someone for inclusion in your course ?).
Could you pls make a correction for Benny Hill’s death, as I believe the year should be 1992. I know the year isn’t really part of the course and is for background info, but I do find the dates quite interesting and, at times, surprising.
Cheers
Al
@albo2albo ~ Thanks for the response. Benny Hill’s life dates have been changed. (Not easy to pass away before you were born). And yes, the dates are a vital part of this course. I am learning a lot about people lives because of my research, so that is why I was sharing the dates. By all means, let me know if you spot any other correctional opportunities of any sort. I’m not always the best proof-reader of my own material.
And I still have over 700 names to add, but am presently working on a few other courses. I will probably renew work on this one sometime next week. Burt Kwouk is on the list (having passed away only 3 months ago). Thanks again.
hi, @pdao: silly watering problem: for girl and boy, in 2015 TOFCL 1, level “n”: it happened several times that both the 2 and 3 characters alternatives came up on the same screen, and the chance to get it right is 50-50. Is there anything than can be done about?
many thanks! I’m almost done with TOFCL 1, 2 and 3 are waiting
@Hydroptere ~ I hope all is well with you. Thank you for your response. I took a look at the two words in question and found that though the characters were different, the English definitions were similar. 男孩子 and 男生 were both defined as “boy”. Likewise, 女孩子 and 女生 were both defined as “girl”.
To make this clearer, I changed the English definition of 男生 to “schoolboy (male student)” and 女生 to “schoolgirl (female student)”. I hope this makes things clearer. I also checked the TOCFL2, TOCFL3 and TOCFL4 courses and neither of these words are repeated again (as there is sometimes overlap in learning as you progress higher), so this should be okay from here on. I apologize for not catching this issue, but glad you have sharper eyes than me (I ?).
Best of luck to you if you try TOCFL2 or higher. You seem to be well gifted for languages, so I think you will succeed at most things you try. Have a great day !
Edit: Hopefully these two changes won’t create any “phantom” entries of the previously duplicated definitions of “boy” and “girl” that used to exist, but are now changed. If it does, than I apologize as that issue (long ago reported to Memrise) is beyond my control.
I am not that gifted with languages - was simply impossible for me to speak real, correct Dutch while living in the Netherlands. The German and the English and the very tiny bits of Swedish spoken (by me) at that time opposed fiercely. I’ve been an excellent and extraordinarily passive speaker of Spanish for 15 years, before daring to utter one single (complete) sentence in Spanish…
It is just that now, my brain got used with being bombarded with new info on a daily basis and being forced to digest it every second day - I’ve been training my brain for several years now Also, I reached the feared plateau with Simplified Mandarin - somehow I cannot seem to progress there… got stuck. It happens. In fact, I am trying not to try… took the back door, with Traditional
for 說 we have “to speak to talk”, and then for 說話 to speak, to talk to say… when you have to review more than 200 items in a course, a bit hard to remember which is which
@Hydroptere ~ I hope all is well with you. Thank you for your response. I apologize for the delayed response, but we were traveling about yesterday and got back late. As for your issue, after a lengthy (and hopefully illuminated) discussion with my wife/teacher, it turns out this duplication was a little more complex than what you mentioned, as it actually extended into another course as well. So I made a few changes to the definitions that I hope you (and others) will find agreeable.
On the TOCFL 1 course, Levels 34 and 35, the definitions for 說 and 說話 have been changed. 說 is a verb, and it is now defined as “to speak, to say, to explain”. 說話 is a noun, and is now defined as “a chat, a talk, gossip”. There are no variations of the root character 說 on the TOCFL 2 course. On the TOCFL 3 course, Levels 32 and 33, there were 3 variations of the root character 說. Two of the definitions were ambiguous or outdated, so were changed. 說法 is now defined as “the way of reasoning / an interpretation / a statement”. 說明 is still defined as “to explain / to illustrate”. 說起來 is now defined as “to say something as a matter of fact / to mention”. There are no variations of the root character 說 on the TOCFL 4 course.
These changes are all supported by dictionary definitions, so I hope they will make things easier for anyone taking any of the courses. I wish you continued success with your learning, and by all means if you spot something else amiss, please let me know. .
Finally, I need to mention that if these changes somehow create “phantom” entries for the previously ambiguous definitions, I have no control over that. That is a long-standing bug. I did my part to remove the ambiguity in the database. Hopefully the changed entries won’t appear any longer in the testing phase, but one never knows any more. Thank you.
oh, the phantom entries, looks like we have to live with them - memrise should, really, introduce an override typos button. To get the red mark, and so to have an immense amount of items for watering, just because the database is full with lingering deleted entries…
btw, are you sure that for 喂 as hello on the phone, wéi is the right pronounciation? isn’t it “wèi” (wei4)?
@Hydroptere ~ I hope all is well with you. Thank you for your response. As for this issue, I can honestly say that this is the one character that I clearly remember led to some rather animated discussions once I learned it years ago (even before the TOCFL courses were created).
Some dictionaries (paper or online) list the pinyin as 2nd tone, some as 4th. But since pinyin is not a big deal in my life (or in Taiwan, which is basically what the TOCFL is geared towards), I don’t place too much emphasis on where a tone should be in terms of writing pinyin (especially as it deals with this particular character) since it is not one that is written very often, but rather is spoken all the time.
The pronunciation for 喂 is as second tone. I have asked around, and no one I know pronounces it as 4th tone. I actually thought it was 3rd tone when I first learned it based on hearing it spoken by those around me, but was corrected to 2nd tone, and continue to pronounce it that way myself. (Many times people here answer the phone as 喂你好, rather than just 喂 - especially in an office environment).
In the old forum (the one that only exists in our memories now), I actually had a disclaimer on the TOCFL courses about how pinyin should not be the main focus of the courses. They are supposed to gear users towards learning Traditional Mandarin characters, not romanization variations, and I hope people can do that.
All this being said, I made a slight alteration on the pinyin for the 喂 character in TOCFL 1 course, levels 38 and 39. I added a note about the 4th tone in parenthesis. It now reflects having both a 2nd and 4 tone, since that is the way the dictionaries conflict with this particular character. Bearing in mind of course, that it is pronounced as 2nd tone. I also checked, and this character does not appear in any of the other 3 TOCFL courses, so this change was only made in the TOCFL 1 course.
Hope this helps, and thank you for your illumination and perusals. Happy learning !
Hi! I have a suggestion for this course: http://www.memrise.com/course/1172192/all-kinds-of-geometric-shapes/
I had one of the multiple choice where I was choosing the right name for a picture. It was clearly a pentagon, so I chose pentagon because I didn’t notice the concave pentagon option. Now, pentagon was correct, because it is a pentagon, even if it’s a concave one, but it wasn’t accepted. So I’m suggesting changing “pentagon”, “hexagon”, etc., to “regular pentagon”, “regular hexagon”, etc. What do you think?
@A_User ~ thank you for your comment. Yes, this is doable. I will take a look at the course later today and adjust the descriptions accordingly. I will post once this is done. Thanks for the suggestion !
@A_User ~ suggested changes have been made. I also changed a few more shape names, so that shapes with “irregular” in the title also now have a “regular” shape name associated in the course. I also added 3 more shapes this morning. More to come, but some other day. Hope this helps. Happy learning !
question: in TOFCL 2 there is 度 as to pass/spend time. I was wondering, does the item appear in the higher levels with the other meaning (more common in the HSKs) - namely “degree”?
@Hydroptere ~ that character and definition appears in TOCFL 2 (levels 8 and 9) and in TOCFL 4 (levels 8 and 9) with the same definition “to pass / to spend time”. I’m not an HSK person, so I have no idea what is listed there for the definition. I checked 3 sources, and they all basically list the same items, in basically the same order:
to pass; to spend (time); measure; limit; extent; degree of intensity; degree (angles, temperature etc); kilowatt-hour; measure word for events and occurrences
Whether one definition takes precedence over another is not something I am aware of.
i mean this meaning: degree (angles, temperature etc). It appears quite often in compounds about all sorts of technical procedures, tech and machinery - i saw it at work
In Taiwan, it does not appear in this sense that often? many hanks
As a compound, then yes, it does appear quite often. Most notably, at least in my mind, as 溫度 (wēndù) ~ which I just heard uttered many times aloud as I sit here and listen to the weatherman on the morning tv news. This particular compound is also listed as being in HSK4.
- I’ve been training my brain for several years now 
Also, I reached the feared plateau with Simplified Mandarin - somehow I cannot seem to progress there… got stuck. It happens. In fact, I am trying not to try… took the back door, with Traditional