[Course Forum] German 1-7 by Memrise

Hi @benton.1,

thanks for your feedback! “die Orange” is taught as “the orange” with an article, while the colour “orange” is just taught as “orange”. So if you are prompted with “orange” without an article, it asks for the colour, while “the orange” asks for the fruit. I hope this helps! If you feel like this is still not clear enough, please let me know and I can review it.

Cheers, Linh

Hey, Linh. I do think it would be good to “disambiguate” the adjective “orange” as well as the noun “orange”. “The proof is in the pudding”, as the saying goes. I’ve gotten it wrong the last three times I’ve had it in reviews. I dare say I’m probably not the only person, either. Articles are not generally used with English nouns in any of the language courses. So, we’re not expecting them. In my review session, I’m getting words like: " bread, welcome, really, fruit, fish, orange, train stations…" So, naturally, when I see the word “orange”, I think the fruit is meant. Putting the word “colour” or “adjective” or “adj” in parenthesis would be easy and would help out a lot. It’s hard enough learning the words themselves without trying to remember which homonym, homograph, or synonym the computer wants without a clue. We students have to “jump through hoops” like: OK, they want me to translate “great” into German. Is it “toll” or “großartig” in this lesson? Let me think… Is it “toll” in the Memrise course or in the Memrise Duolingo course, or is it “großartig” in the Memrise course… Let’s see it’s Thursday, 5pm in Munich, and I’m wearing my slippers so, it must be… Dagnabit! I guessed wrong again and I know the doggone words, too! :wink:

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Hi there, @benton.1!
I have now changed the English definitions to “orange (adj.)” and “the orange” to avoid any confusion.

Happy learning!

Rob

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On German 6 - Phrases: Sound like a Native, both of these phrases don’t work perfeclty

von nichts kommt nichts
wer nicht wagt der nicht gewinnt

in both cases the repeated word dosen’t show up twice making it impossible to answer correctly, this problem happens on the PC.

Hi @Rantos,
Thanks for your comment! Could you please explain the issue in more detail? Is this an audio issue or an issue with the phrase in its written form? The more details I have, the better I can have a look at it. Cheers, Linh

Hi @linh.vu , it was actually a bug in the web browser version of Memrise and has already been fixed. Later I found this thread: New sentence building bug Cheers!

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Could you please add synonym “bis bald” to “bis später” in first lesson of German 1? Thanks

@ortocymen I’m curious as to why you want “bis bald” added as a synonym for “bis später”. “Soon” and “later” aren’t synonyms.

@linh.vu Since changes have been made on Memrise recently, and since I’ve noticed changes from the format I usually see in my lessons, I have to ask if a change was just made to how some things are being presented or if I am just at a spot in my lessons where the format changes. I’m in the middle of German 2, Lesson 21 “Where Do You Live”. The word “nie”, for instance, is not presented by itself when one gets into the lesson, but as part of a long sentence with “nie” in blue and the other words in black. Is this a new change to the lessons or am I just seeing a new presentation because I’ve reached Lesson 21? Thanks

@benton.1 Fair enough, I’m sorry for not looking on this topic beforem spamming forum. I missed the difference between “see you soon” and “see you later”, as I thought they are synonyms. Thanks

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  1. While doing the first lesson on German 3 today, I found that “keine Sorge” was translated “no problem” in one sentence and “no worries” in the others. Please take out the cue “no problem” when you want the answer “keine Sorge” and substitute “no worries” as the cue.

  2. Could you change “egal = not important” to “egal = equal”

  3. a. You have “das ist mir egal = I don’t mind”. Would you please change the definition to “It’s all the same to me”?

    b. You have the literal translation as “this is me not-important”. Would you please change it to “that is (to) me equal”?

@Lien

Update: 1/2/18 Got the cue “not important” on a review today. I wrote “nicht wichtig” and got it wrong. PLEASE change the cue for egal to equal.

@Lien German 1: During a review I got the cue “short” so I wrote “klein” because I thought you wanted the opposite of “tall”. But the answer was “kurz” because you wanted the opposite of “long”. Would you please make the cue “short (in length)” so that people will not get confused?

Thank you

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Hi @benton.1,

first of all: happy new year and thanks for your comments! Regarding your questions:

  1. You’re probably referring to the sentence “kein Problem, mach dir keine Sorgen” (“no problem, don’t worry about it”), where you find both “Problem” and “Sorge”. Otherwise, “Problem” is translated as “problem” while “Sorge” is “worry”.

  2. Concerning “egal”: Our translation is correct, “egal” doesn’t mean “equal” (“gleich”). “Das ist mir egal” can mean “I don’t mind”, “I don’t care” or as you said "It’s all the same to me”. Technically, you can say “das ist mir gleich”=“das ist mir egal”, but “egal” cannot be translated as “equal”.

  3. For “not important”, “nicht wichtig” should usually be accepted as well, as we added it as an alternative. Please let me know if it doesn’t work the next time you encounter it.

  4. I’ve added the cue “in length” to “short”, so hopefully this shouldn’t cause any confusion anymore.

Hope this helps! Best, Linh

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In “German 4” the course seems to be missing level 2, 4 & 6. Were these perhaps removed after publication? Or are they for Pro learners only?

Also, a bug that crops up for me from time to time: when learning new words, sometimes if I hit the SPACE key (ex. to type “spaß machen”), it will play audio for another word being taught in the lesson. The only way to get it to stop seems to be to exit out of the learning session & start a new one.

In German 3: Months and Dates.

Card - Welches Datum haben wir heute?

The woman in the video says “Was haben wir heute?”, I think.

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Hi @JenniferNarzt and @JoshTaylor5d53 ,

thanks for your messages!

@JenniferNarzt The “missing” levels are placeholders for the Grammarchats that we have for the German course. About the bug, is this still an issue? Also, do you experince this issue on web or in the app (if yes, is it Android or iOS)?

@JoshTaylor5d53, sorry for this, I thought we had already removed these videos. Anyway, they are removed now, so thanks for pointing out the issue, well spotted!

Thanks and happy learning! Linh

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The bug hasn’t happened in a while, but it has occurred on & off for over a year at least (however, back in January for a little bit it was happening a LOT, almost every session for about a week). It only happens to me in the web version.

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Hi @JenniferNarzt, could you have a look at our bug thread http://community.memrise.com/c/bugs and see whether this issue has already been mentioned there? If not, next time it happens to you, you can open a new topic there or send a bug report here: https://memrise.helpshift.com/a/memrise-learn-a-new-language/?p=web&l=en&s=report-a-bug&f=how-do-i-report-a-bug. Unfortunately I’m not aware of any issue related to what you have encountered yet.

Happy Learning! Linh

How much support is this course getting currently?

I am currently going through the entire G1-G7, and while going through 3 & entering into 4, 5 & 6, I have to say the English translations get sloppy (or is that lazy???) when it comes to grammar & swapping of completely different verbs.

For example, when it comes to dass (that), at first dass is defined as “that (followed by sentence)”, but in the 12 examples used from G3 Level 13 through G6 Level 14… not once is “that” in the translation, nor is there a comma preceding it.

In general, wherever a comma should be used in the English translation (often where it is also in German), it has been completely ignored.

Usage of the modal verbs is likewise very sloppy in the English translations, so how can be go about getting this cleaned up?

To make it easier, I will just add entries where needed, by level, entry German, entry English and a suggestion for correction. Here are all with “dass”…

3L13 - Contamination!

  • dass
    that (followed by sentence)
    …, that (direct object or pronoun) … verb (linked to D.O./pronoun).
  • der Arzt denkt, dass er Medizin braucht
    the doctor thinks he needs medicine
    The doctor thinks, that he needs medicine.

3L23 - Mayday!

  • der Arzt denkt, dass dein Bein gebrochen ist
    the doctor thinks your leg is broken
    The doctor thinks, that your leg is broken.

3L40 - Next Summer on Earth

  • ich glaube nicht, dass er um sieben Uhr wieder hier ist
    I don’t think he’ll be back at seven o’clock
    I don’t believe, that he’ll be back at 7 O’clock.

3L40 - Next Summer on Earth

  • ich glaube nicht, dass sie um elf Uhr in Berlin sind
    I don’t think they’ll be in Berlin at eleven o’clock
    I don’t believe, that they’ll be in Berlin by 11 O’clock.

5L17 - Exploration .

  • … dass ich mein Eis fallen ließ
    … that I dropped my ice cream
    … that I let my ice cream fall.

5L18 - Choosing a Leader

  • findest du, dass der Präsident seine Arbeit gut macht?
    do you think, [that] the president is doing a good job?
    Do you think, that, the president is doing his job good?

5L23 - Confrontrations

  • ich bin sicher, dass alles gut wird
    I’m sure all will be good
    I’m certain, that all will be good.

  • ich glaube, dass ich seine Gefühle verletzt habe
    I think I hurt his feelings
    I believe, that I hurt his feelings.

6L08 - You Wouldn’t Believe It!

  • ich denke, dass es der Typ auf der linken Seite war
    I think it was the guy to the left
    I think, that it was the guy on the left.

6L10 - Facts

  • mir wurde klar, dass …
    it occurred to me …
    It became clear [to me], that …

6L11 - Sports, On Screen

  • ich glaube, dass mein Team vielleicht morgen gewinnt
    I think my team may win tomorrow
    I believe, that my team may win tomorrow.