Level 8, the phrase “Are you ready?”. For an English speaker, “you” is the most tricky word to deal with when trying to think in German. It could be singular (du), plural (ihr) or formal (Sie). The correct given answer on the course is “sind Sie bereit?”: but “bist du bereit?” or “seid ihr bereit?” would be equally correct given the question.
I know that courses that try to be extremely precise (for example, the excellent user-created grammar course here: http://www.memrise.com/course/74072/german-grammar-7/) can have questions that look ugly because of their precision. But I think that’s better than letting learners make a “wrong” answer (and then be reminded of it automatically for practice as if it was a problem) just because the question is vague.
How about changing the English entry for this question to “Are you ready? (formal)”
The German 4 Lesson 4 - ‘It’s all in the Past!’ seems to be out of place. The focus of the lesson is to make sentences using the past tense - but past tense verbs have not been introduced yet. To complete this lesson, I had to go back to the A1 course and review lessons 72-81. Without prior knowledge of the A1 course, I would not have been able to understand this lesson.
Level 8, the phrase “Are you ready?”. For an English speaker, “you” is the most tricky word to deal with when trying to think in German. It could be singular (du), plural (ihr) or formal (Sie). The correct given answer on the course is “sind Sie bereit?”: but “bist du bereit?” or “seid ihr bereit?” would be equally correct given the question.
I know that courses that try to be extremely precise (for example, the excellent user-created grammar course here: http://www.memrise.com/course/74072/german-grammar-7/) can have questions that look ugly because of their precision. But I think that’s better than letting learners make a “wrong” answer (and then be reminded of it automatically for practice as if it was a problem) just because the question is vague.
How about changing the English entry for this question to “Are you ready? (formal)”
Level 43 subject “ich bin mir sicher dass du sehr reich sein wirst” : when I have to define the order of words, “reich sein” is in a single tile while the other words have each one a tile. Even if I do choose this double tile and then the last word and the sentence looks correct, the feedback is that I was wrong. This way the word is counted as being wrong many times and I got stuck in learning it. Any idea how to go through it?
Similarly, in Level 5, the put-the-words-in-the-correct-order question for “ich habe die Ergebnisse im Radio gehört” won’t accept the correct answer. In this case, “die Ergebnisse” is together in one box, and I notice in the example above that “gehen normalerweise” is also in one box - might just be a coincidence, or could perhaps be contributing to the error?
thank you for noticing and letting us know! You are right, I am very sorry for these inconveniences!
We will have to move the past verbs part up so it appears before German 4 level 4. Currently trying to improving
our German courses so this is definitely on the list!
also @irridmemorizza
thanks for noticing! I just changed the English entry to “are you ready (formal)?” so now it should
be clear that users are asked to put the formal “you” = "Sie"
have a great day!
This word has confused me. I am currently on German 2 having almost completed German A1. There are several sentences in German 2 that use the word “dort” (there). For example:
es gibt dort viele kleine Buchhandlugen
In German A1, “dort” was never used in this sentence (or similar sentences). Whilst I’m happy to learn this word, I wanted to check that the sentence above is correct. To me it reads “there are there many small bookstores”.
Why isn’t, “es gibt viele kleine Buchhandlungen” acceptable to use?
Your sentence would mean “There exist many small bookstores there.” as in “There are many small bookstores in that specific place.”. “Es gibt viele kleine Buchhandlungen.” would have a more general meaning like “Many small bookstores exist.”.
I’ve already raised an issue with the removal of the official Memrise mems but disappointed to see in the latest update that the ability to use any mems has now been removed . One of the unique selling points of Memrise was the mems.
So I’m hoping my fellow Memrisers can help with this sentence in German Level 2.
“weil du krank bist”.
Can someone help me to understand why the word order is structured in this way? I’m assuming “weil du bist krank” is grammatically incorrect. So what are the grammar rules for making it “weil du krank bist”?
Subordinating conjunctions do something much more confusing—they kick the first verb in the clause to the end of the clause. The most common subordinating conjunctions are: während, bis, als, wenn, da, weil, ob, obwohl, and dass.
Ich kann ihn nicht leiden, weil er so ein egoistischer Idiot ist.
Normally, the word order would be:
Er ist so ein egoistischer Idiot.
But if you use a subordinating conjunction, then the verb gets moved to the end of the clause:
Ich habe auch schon immer gedacht, dass er ein egoistischer Idiot ist.
Obwohl er ein egoistischer Idiot ist, sollten wir nett zu ihm sein.
sorry, but the so called explanations in that “fluetu” link are almost … bizarre in their … simplicity… so to say… how can one place “während” at the beginning of a list of the “most used subordinating conjunctions” remains their secret… with such “explanations” nobody ever really learns any language
