In Japanese 2, level 8, we have “快速電車” translated as “a fast train” and “各駅停車” translated as “a slow train that stops at every stop.” I think a better description for these would be “An express/rapid service train,” and “A local/commuter service train” since these seem to have little to do with the actual speeds the trains are capable of going at, and more to do with how frequently they stop. People generally know that express/rapid service trains make fewer stops in order to complete the line faster compared to local/commuter service trains that stop at every stop.
Another one is “地下鉄” as “an underground train.” This one might just be the fact that I’m not British, but I’ve seen that translated as “subway” before. I know that in Europe it’s sometimes called the metro, the underground, or the Tube, but “an underground train” to me just seems like a weird way to describe the subway. It seems so literal that it might be misinterpreted.
Hi, in the iOS version of Japanese 1, Lesson 16, “Sites to See!” the word “souvenir” in the sentence “I want to buy souvenirs” is misspelled “souvernirs”.
I have never noticed that before that the iOS course is different. Doesn’t that make studying difficult?
Note, the Android and the iOS app have a features like Grammar bot and Learn with the Locals that webversions (as far as I know) do not offer. The ‘classic’ flashcard features, i.e. memorizing words/phrases I until now believed to be same content…
Still, if the link to the course is Memrise Japanese, any remarks and questions can be posted in the ‘Course Forum’ thread.
Yes, I had to give up on the web version mostly because the vaunted “SRS” doesn’t work on Japanese 1 - you just review the same words every day forever.
Also, as u say, there is no Grammar feature on the web version.
It’s too bad though because I can hardly read the Kanji on the iOS or Android versions, and am probably ruining my eyes for life.
Speaking of the Grammar feature, I’ve just about finished Japanese 1 and I’m wishing to God they would deal with the Te-form. Does it come up in Jap 2 do u or anyone know? I can’t figure out how to find the iOS/Android Official Memrise Jap forum to ask.
When you say that you get the same words again day after day, it makes my wonder. The review will give the same words over and over in two cases:
(1) the course is very small: there is nothing else to review
(2) the learner has learned only a small number of words; hence there is only a little to review, as it only reviews learned words. In that case, it’s simple time for learning more
Makes me wonder: are you not accidentally doing another course then the Japanese by Memrise one?
BTW: I found out that my information that there is no Grammar or Chat bot on the website is incorrect (unless it has been removed). I found this picturein an old post; notice the yellow and purple button on the left to access the bots:
To be complete: this is a search for the current Japanese (for English speakers) by Memrise:
Anyway, you may give any comments on the link I shared above. It’s best to leave you comments there, so the people who monitors that thread are more likely to see it then our discussion here. @KanaTsumoto Could you shine some light on this issue? Thank you!
The Godan verb with u ending (whatever that means) しまう apparently meaning “to do accidentally” comes out of nowhere here and the translation needs tidying up. Thanks.
To the point of the Grammar availability on web, our old feature “Grammarbot/Grammar Chat” exists for some older courses but we are not planning to update them or scale them in the time being. The newer courses have “Grammar levels” that are currently only available on mobile platforms. We hope this will become available for web soon as well.
I have been using the premium app happily for over a year now. Thanks to the team for addressing all of my issues.
I have a few more bugs / feature suggestions. These might be universal to all courses, so maybe this feedback can be redirected elsewhere.
Bug: On a listening exercise, after I choose an answer and hit check and it is correct, if I try to hear one of the other answers again, it disables the continue button and I am forced to exit the lesson. I think it would be nice to be able to listen to the other options after answering.
Bug-ish: The grammar lessons show up as needing review, but they are not reviewable. In my course selection menu, it constantly says there are 3 cards to review even though there are no cards to review. For example, my Japanese 0 always says there are 3 cards to review. I believe those are the 3 grammar cards in the course:
Feature: During typing lessons, the kana/kanji keyboard is always the same. This means that for shorter cards like kanji, I can get the right answer without looking at the buttons at all. This is especially true for the difficult words exercises, where I have to input the same words multiple times. I think the keyboard should be shuffled up each time so that the only pattern I can identify is the actual contents of the buttons.
I can see this happen on other Android devices as well. The ‘bug’ happens because the test was not designed to allow learners to play the other non-correct audio options after checking the answer. I will bring this up with the developers and decide how we want to design the UI if we are intentionally allowing learners to play the other options after checking. We want to avoid making it unnecessarily confusing.
Big apologies for this. We haven’t had enough resources to enable the review option for Grammar just yet. We’ll update you once the situation changes.
It sounds like you have the “British English” version of the course? The “underground” is very much what we call an underground railway here. A “subway” is for walking underneath a road.
We also call those trains the “fast” and “stopping” trains
I am using British English, I’m not sure if the American English has been updated yet or not. I did note that the subway is called the underground in parts of Europe/England, but that “an underground train” could imply the train itself and is somewhat ambiguous, rather than the underground as a transit system, and I believe “地下鉄” refers to the system, rather than a train that runs on the system. I perhaps didn’t express myself properly, but I think referring to it as “the metro/the underground/the Tube” would be better than “an underground train,” as that clears up any confusion as to whether it refers to a transit network or not.
Yes, in this case “the Underground” is probably the safest translation (the 鉄 refers to the rails, I believe, just like the French chemin de fer or “iron road”).
As you can see, 交差点 is translated “descente d’autoroute”, which doesn’t mean anything in french.
The right translation would be “carrefour, intersection, croisement”.
