Tweet Memrise to change it
Hey since I know there isn’t a Japanese 4-7, I made my own Japanese 4 which was approved by Memrise via Twitter. I stylized it to be just like the Memrise courses. it features everything from Katakana, to more complex Kanji, to casual words, and a broad range of diverse topics that go in depth. I really hope you guys try it out and I might even do a Japanese 5-7 just to make everything fair!
NOTE: This course functions like the older Memrise Japanese courses which involve words entirely in Hiragana with extra levels for learning the Kanji titled “Cracking Kanji”. If you finished Japanese 3 on the Advanced or Romaji version, brace yourself! IT’S WORTH IT!!
New japanese 2 level 11 for 売ります the female voice says 翔さんのため.
Also 人 is in levels 10 and 14 both, which is not a problem per se; but seems a bit funky b/c then you have one lesson started out of order after doing lesson 10.
PLEASE DO! I’ve gone through all 3 courses in their entirety and have been struggling to find something more challenging. The unofficial courses focusing on grammar are what I’m doing right now, but I’ve only found up to JLPT4 for that as well. I would much prefer a focus on native-spelling though, with kanji being the default written text and the hiragana on the bottom, but thanks for your efforts.
Anyway, my reason for this comment is to report some errors in the new Kanji-based Level 3(thank you guys so much for making this, by the way!!). Audio does not line up with the text for at least 3 different ones. Here are two that I got screenshots of.
Hi McFadge,
You’re definitely going crazy… 乾いています is dry and 渇いています is parched (specifically only for throat) and they sound the same. There was error in presenting 乾いています as thirsty (throat) so I’ve changed it. Thanks!
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Hi CamJN,
Thanks for flagging! The 売ります is now corrected and 人 in the later level is deleted.
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Hi relyat08,
Thanks for pointing out the errors. I’ve corrected the audio but I’m not able to amend anything in furigana and literal translation due to technical problems. As soon as the tool is fixed I will fix those two fields too.
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Hi JosephHarn, welcome to the forum!
There are currently 3 separates sets of official Memrise courses. They are referred to as:
Old Japanese course (available 1-3): HIRAGANA ONLY, except Cracking Kanji levels
Japanese course (available 1-3) : hiragana, kanji and katakana
Japanese course Romaji only (available 1-3): no Japanese script whatsoever.
The 2 new versions were created fairly recently in response to user feedback. The old Japanese courses are not visible for new users but people who are already on that course may continue to use it, if they wish to. (Although switching to one of the new versions is recommended).
Well done on your effort creating the Japanese course! We appreciate all contributions by the community, however we cannot approve nor disapprove user-created courses that are not reviewed by Memrise in-house linguists.
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Japanese 1, mixed kanji, hirragana and katakana in combined sentences,
i experience alot that in the memrise japanese 1 course its often a mix between the use of katakana and kanji primarily. i see that the same is happening is happening in japanese 2 aswell… it does not make sense to me that this is how its surposed to be, or is it?
pls help
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I’ve run into an issue with the new Japanese 1 on the mobile app. I’m stuck in a loop with the “chat” where it’s asking me to help bake cookies. I get through the part of giving the chatbot 卵 just fine, but then it starts asking me for words I have not learned yet.
I did guess the word for flour, and after several tries I got the butter and cocoa powder correct (complete guesses for cocoa power on my end), and it’s at the “sugar” stage I get stuck. It took some guesses but I got the furigana for sugar correct but when I get to the part where it insists I should know the kanji, it gives me 2 options. It doesn’t matter which one (or which combination) I choose, it’s always incorrect. I tried using Google Translate for help but it’s giving me kanji that don’t look at all like what’s in the app (and I know Google Translate is often wrong).
Why am I even being asked for words I haven’t learned?
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This is correct. Within a sentence, there is often a mix of kanji, hiragana and katakana, depending on word origin. The katakana are easy to know because they sound like foreign (often English) words … like banana (バナナ).
To know when to use kanji vs. hiragana I think it’s just a matter of memorization.
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Yes, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Japanese is a combination of the traditional Chinese script “kanji”, their script for native words and grammar “hiragana”, and their script for foreign words “katakana”. The use of all 3 in a single sentence is very normal, and will actually be very helpful to you later down the line. Japanese doesn’t use spaces generally, so having different scripts allows for much easier distinction between words. For example, you could say something like 私は行っている or 私は言っている or わたしはいっている. All three sentences are pronounced exactly the same, but thanks to the use of kanji, the first two sentences are instantly understandable, while the 3rd sentence that is just using hiragana is unclear and you would need to ask for clarification if you saw something written that way.
Following up on Kleineganz’s question about the chat stuff, I think that’s a really cool feature, and appreciate it’s inclusion. At the same time, after going through a couple of them, even in level 2, they are always in romaji, and very elementary. Is there a more advanced one in development? or just further down the road from where I’ve reached? Something that forces me to have conversations, no matter how simple, is really valuable, so I think that’d be pretty sweet. Also, is there a way to turn them off? Just in case.
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What else would be nice would be an option to have a live chat with other people taking the course, although being able to accommodate the character sets on mobile may be tricky. I’d love to be able to from the web version, though (where I can use my Japanese IME).
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Hmm, I think the audio is all that actually needs to be fixed. Everything else is in line, as far as I can tell, the audio just doesn’t match a couple of them. Maybe I need to log out and back in again, but I’m still having that problem. Anyway, so for example, this first one is obviously requesting 翔さんは芸術に興味がありますか？ but the answer that I had highlighted there, and the answer that it accepts as correct is one about Riho-san being interested in language studies(里穂さんは語学に興味があります). For the second one there, obviously both scripts match up for the English Translation and the Correct answer in Japanese, but when I select that answer, the audio response is about Riho-san being interested in language studies once again. The answer is accepted as correct, the script is correct, but the audio is off. I’ll log out tonight and see if it has been updated like you said.
Another problem I keep having is that the いいです; 良いです answer is really picky about the spacing and semi-colon. I literally can’t answer it so that I’m accepted as correct, even though I get the words right.
It’s super discouraging and I hope that can be tweaked soon.
For me, that works if I just omit the space completely and type
いいです良いです
The semicolon should mean that either answer is correct when typing, but I’m wondering if the semicolon was put in whilst using a japanese ime, and so it’s a “japanese” semicolon rather than a “standard” one and memrise isn’t recognising it? @MarikoMiz, could you please check? Thanks!
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Hi!
Sorry you’re still experiencing the issues! I have checked the entire level again and the audio are now completely aligned. Please log out & log back in to test. The only problem here is that the Furigana is off. (which I explained I can’t fix now… for the reason mentioned earlier).
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Hi there!
Maybe it’s just me but i think that in Level 10 two words are spelled wrong.
The sign i am referring to is ビ for “bi”. But the Memrise app says it means “bo” while the two voices spell it “bi”.
Furthermore it says リ should mean “rii” with two “i” instead of just one.
Need help for this one.
Thanks a lot.
さようなら！
Currently all semicolons that appear in Japanese items are Japanese semicolons and semicolons in English items are English semicolons. For example:
〜です；〜ます (JAPANESE SEMICOLON USED)
I; me (ENGLISH SEMICOLON USED)
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Hi!
I’m a little confused. り(hiragana) and リ (katakana) should be ‘ri’ and び(hiragana) and ビ(katakana) are bi. Both audio seem to be correct. Are you on the latest version of the app?