[Course Forum] Japanese 1-7 by Memrise

Official Memrise Courses Japanese
,
765

Another comment for the American English course:

I’m not sure that having to search through walls of text is conducive to a pleasant experience when you are on a timer.

Especially if there are a large number of options and/or long sentences.

The same is true of the exercises where you are given a list of words to build a sentence from. If there is no timer, then it is fine. If there is a timer, and you have twenty words to search through, it is not fun.

I think that the typing ones are perfectly fine though, as you can just use an IME and the keyboard. At least on the website. I will try out some of those exercises on the app when I get the chance, but the ability to use direct input means that extra options are not as big of an issue there.

766

Also why so many proper names in kanji? Is there any reason for this, other than to make it more confusing for newbies?

767

Because, proper names have been around for a while and are most of them are written in kanji.

The kana have been around a while, but were always mostly used for informal stuff at first. It’s only been relatively recent that any names at all started to be written commonly in kana.

So, you may see a lot of first names in kana, but family names will always be kanji.

768

Oh I understand that, but I feel it has no place in a beginners course. If
you are teaching how sentence structure works, there really is little
difference between saying Ranma goes to the store , compared with Mr Satome
goes to the store. But the second one is far more confusing, because you
are teaching newbies kanji that is essentially useless clutter at the level
1 stage of learning.

Mr Suzuki you are a genius is in the first level of the first program? And
for the life of me I cant see a purpose to this.

http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail
Virus-free.
www.avg.com
http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail
<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

1 Like
769

Learning the kana can take a matter of a few hours of study, with refresher study now and then as you go.

Learning kanji takes longer.

Learning kanji is a requirement if you want to be able to actually read modern Japanese, and the more kanji you learn, the easier the process of building vocabulary becomes.

In Japanese schools, they start teaching the initial kanji in first grade. Kindergarten and first grade focus on kana, but kanji starts as soon as kana is learned.

Kanji provide one other really major bonus. Kanji are tied to meaning as well as sound. This means that often, even if you don’t remember the pronunciation of a word, you can still read it if you know what the kanji means.

770

I was doing Japanese 2, just wanted to let you know in the ‘getting fed’ section you had the romaji incorrect. I hope you can change it so as to not confuse anyone. Thanks!

辛いです(karai desu)
displayed romaji: tsurai desu
Kana: からいです

1 Like
771

Hi @burlingk

Thank you for letting me know this. I have noticed this too, and as the new Japanese Specialist, my mission is to make the course more correct and practical, including this mistake you pointed out. The issue we have at the moment is that as soon as I make changes in an item, it is going to reset everyone’s learning history for that item, and since this word（です） is everywhere, the changes will be affecting many people significantly. We’ll figure out how we do this. Thank you for your report and telling us this matters! Bare with me for a bit whilst I make the changes please.

Kana

2 Likes
772

Thank you @KeiNagisa!
I’ve fixed this just now. You should see it there once you log out and log in again. Thanks!

2 Likes
773

I found some translation issues in the Japanese for German speakers courses:

In the new Japanese 3, Level 5:

昼食を食べます is translated as "frühstücken" (to have breakfast) but I think it should be "zu Mittag essen" (to have lunch).

In the new Japanese 3, Level 14:

The text says テレビゲーム but the speaker says ビデオゲーム

Same issue in the sentence 私の子供達はこれ…

In the new Japanese 3, Level 15:

私のお母さんも時計を… there are some words at the end that are probaly from another sentence

In the new Japanese 3, Level 16:

キロ is translated as “Kilometer”, but “Kilogramm” would be correct.

Text and audio: マリアさんは六十キロです、but it is translated as “sie wiegt 60 Kilo” instead of “Maria wiegt 60 Kilo”

Text and audio: 鈴木さんは一メートル… but it is translated as “er ist…” instead of “Herr Suzuki ist…”

In the new Japanese 3, Level 20:

私達のお母さんはいつもニュースを観ていますshouldn’t this be 母 instead of お母さん, as I’m speaking of my own mother?

In the new Japanese 2, Level 29:

The literal translation for 100 says "zwei zehn vier" (two ten four).
The literal translation for 24 says "vier zehn sechs" (four ten six).
1 Like
774

I have started using the new course as you suggested. :slight_smile:

My future comments will refer to that one.

775

In the Japanese 2 course level 24: https://www.memrise.com/course/1389172/japanese-2/

IMG_6405
IMG_64051242×2208 156 KB

There is an extra の in the furigana which isn’t needed. The audio matches top part.

In Japanese 3 level 38:

IMG_6419
IMG_64191242×2208 93.8 KB

The audio and furigana match, but don’t actually translate to the right answer. 全 is ぜん not ぜい.

1 Like
776

Auto-learn isn’t showing up for me.

777

Hi @cvigil,

This option is only available through the website, and not the app. Was it not available to you even on the website version? It should look like this…

26
26744×754 151 KB

Thanks!

2 Likes
778

It didn’t show up. I wonder if it’s possibly because one is UK and the other US? How could I check that?

779

Hi @cvigil,

Oh no, I’m sorry it isn’t showing up for you. All Memrise official courses should have this option on the level pages, regardless of the language… but the first one below is for US learners.


and this is for UK learners

Do they work differently for you?

2 Likes
780

Hi @Scintilla,

Thank you so much for reporting this to us! I appreciate this massively! I think all the fixes are there now. Please log out and log in again to see the changes.

As for the item below, we are not teaching this differentiation in this course… yet. But I am hoping to include the linguistic concept of “respect” in Japanese in the new course I am redesigning at the moment:slight_smile:

Please let me know if you find any other problems!

2 Likes
781

Hello Kanatsumoto,
Here are my notes on Japanese 3 as promised.
Audio incongruities:

  • ちかく the female voice says “ちかいです”
  • いみする the male voice says “いみします”
  • わたしたちはみちにまよいました both voices say only: みちにまよいました
    Ambiguities:
    show - it’s not clear that it’s a TV show (ばんぐみ) and not みせる for example
    second - as well, instead of びょう it could be にばん for example!
    is free - it’s じゅうです but it could just as well be ひまです.
    mobile - who says でんわけいたい? I’ve never heard anyone say anything other than just けいたい.
    shame - it’s ざんねん which I know to be used in the sense of “what a pity!” but if I didn’t, I could easily misunderstand it in the sense of shameful.
    English can be very ambiguous and a parenthesis with more details or a sentence contextualizing things would be very helpful.
    In other cases, the translations are questionable, for example:
    that’s useless! for さやく? and さいこです for awesome?
    For me, さやく is the worst; さいこう the best; すごい is awesome.

And by the way, why is this thread called 1-7? I’ve never seen more than 3, if they exist already, can you please tell me how to find them? Thank you.

1 Like
782

And by the way, why is this thread called 1-7? I’ve never seen more than 3, if they exist already, can you please tell me how to find them? Thank you.

A while ago, the Memrise Japanese courses have been reorganized. Previously, there has been one “tracks” with seven courses, Japanese 1 through Japanese 7. Now, there are two “tracks”. One track offers courses that use script (hiragana, kataka and kanji). The other tracks offers courses that use roumaji only. Because that separation is relatively new, only the first three courses for the new “tracks” have been published yet. This thread is from back when the old courses 1 through 7 were offered.

3 Likes
783

The auto-learn option is missing for both. I had assumed this course was the same (screenshot) and would transfer over.

24
242704×1652 768 KB

784

I’m so sorry @cvigil,

It turns out that the auto-learn function was only available for the course editor for testing purposes. I’m afraid that this will not be available for you on these Japanese courses. I apologise for getting your hopes up…

2 Likes