Well, no, the main point was that the word “close” is ambiguous in English and it was not clear which meaning was intended.
Hallo!
German-2, level 11, why:
- wo ist das Krankenhaus?
but 2. ein Krankenhaus? We should learn word in limma, not with the article “ein”, shouldn’t we?
Further there:
es ist möglich
ist es möglich?
das ist unmöglich!
If they are the same I would suggest:
es (das) ist möglich
ist es (das) möglich?
es (das) ist unmöglich!
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In German 1 the answer given for “I’m sorry; excuse me” is “Entschuldigung”. Shouldn’t the correct answer be “enschuldigen” or “enschuldigen Sie”? Die Entschuldigung is an excuse or apology, not the act of saying one is sorry or “excuse me”.
People often just say, “Entschuldigung!” when they accidentally bump into someone or drop something, the translation is perfectly accurate.
PS, here are my credentials for making pronouncements about German 
:
- have lived in Germany for almost 30 years
- started learning German 40 years ago
- have a 2:1 degree in German Studies from UEA, a Diploma in Translation (German to English) from the Institute of Linguists in London.
Just FYI
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Hi and thanks for your feedback!
“Ein Krankenhaus” is indeed a mistake on our end, we usually introduce a new lexical item (here: a word) with the
definite article to show which article the word takes. So I’ve just corrected it to “das Krankenhaus” = ‘the hospital’. Thanks!
As for your other comment, they are not the same and work the same way as in English:
‘it is impossible’ vs 'this is impossible’
Although often they can be used interchangeably, there is a slight difference in them, namely that
"das ist unmöglich" (‘this is impossible’) refers to a more specific thing or situation, whereas
"es ist unmöglich" (or: "es ist möglich) (‘it is impossible’) is the more general way of saying it. So, for example if you were to add something to the sentence, you would use the second version:
“es ist unmöglich perfekt Deutsch zu lernen” (‘it is impossible to perfectly learn German’) 
I hope this will clarify it for you!
Best,
Mario
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Surely I didn’t mean that using ‘es’ or ‘das’ is a mistake. I just meant that we have to remember where in those phrases is used ‘es’ and where ‘das’.
Memrise will allow both option to be correct if you change the phrases to: ‘es (das) ist unmoeglich’ and ‘ist es (das) moeglich’. In this case whatever option I choose both will be accepted - I can enter ‘es ist unmoeglich’ or ‘das ist unmoeglich’. At least that is my understanding of how Memrise allows two correct answers.
I hope you understand what I mean.
Problem here is that using brackets indicates that two things are either the same or can almost always be used interchangeably, which for “es” and “das” is NOT the case. They are different words and you just have to remember the English translation, so again, they work the same as in English. “it” is usually translated with “es” and “this” with “das”. thus, we the prompt is “das ist unmöglich” you should enter “this is impossible”. It is a lexical 1:1 translation.
So unfortunately we cannot change it to a representation like “es (das) ist unmöglich”, as I think it would only confuse more users that it can be helpful for. Hope you understand?
Thanks!
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Thanks a bunch for a very useful course!
In German 5, lvl 5, there is the sentence “lass es uns versuchen”, while the English is just “let’s try” (without “it”). Does that mean that this phrase cannot be used without an object in German? I.e. that saying just “lass uns versuchen” would be wrong, even though it might be obvious from the context what we’re going to try?
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German 4 level 5.
“was willst du in deinem Leben erreichen?” is translated as “what do you want to do in life?”
According to my dictionary, erreichen ~ achieve. Is the translation correct then? Should it not rather be 'What do you want to achieve in life"?
Thanks in advance
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hi all! I have just now started learning the german 1 course, and I just got asked: was geht ab? (whats up?) in a tapping test question, and it didn’t have the “ab” it had the was, geht and a few other words, but not that one, so I couldn’t get it right…
is there anything I can do to stop this happening? thanks!
Hi there and thanks for raising this question! This is indeed the correct explanation, as the German “lass uns versuchen” is grammatically incorrect, because the German verb “versuchen” (to try) must take an object, it is a transitive verb. I hope this clarifies it a little for you and other users!?
Best wishes,
Mario
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Thanks for flagging this! “Erreichen” indeed means “to achieve”, I’ve just changed the English translation to "what do you want to achieve in life?"
Happy learning and best wishes!
Mario
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Hey ApolloNexus, thanks for flagging this issue! I’ve just tried to reproduce this problem, but it worked fine for me, when I was prompted with “what’s up?”, and had to produce “was geht ab?” I had all three elements “was”, “geht” and “ab” available. Could you try again and see if the problem persists? If so, please email me at [email protected] with a screenshot, your Memrise username as well as your app version?
Thanks and happy learning!
Mario
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hi! this has not happened to me again, it must have been a glitch…?
2 posts were merged into an existing topic: [Course Forum] Немецкий 1-7 (German for Russian speakers) by Memrise
Hallo mitasamodel,
nein, beide Sätze sind richtig.
Siehe Duden:
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Danke schon, redux2.
Ich habe nicht gewusst, dass “der Automat” im Akkusativ “den Automaten” ist.
Außerdem habe ich andere gleiche Worter gefunden =)
Danke schon noch ein mal
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Concerning German 1 level 11, for the word they’re “Sie sind” is given as an audio option twice. I believe both pronunciations are identical, however i always get it wrong because I don’t select the correct “sie sind” apparently. I believe the audio comes twice because Sie sind an be you are or they are, but the pronunciation is the same so either the audio options should be changed, or both “sie sind” audio should be accepted I think.
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