After a long hard look at the Maria san wa part of the post I can see what this sentence is really trying to say, although I still prefer my version.
The “Ga” in the sentence makes it stand out. Got to admit I sometimes forget what Wa and Ga do to a sentence. In this instance the Ga is on Nihon Go, putting this the forefront of the sentence.
As for Suteki desu, I see your point, Desu is more than just a politeness particle, it means all the little words we use in English, so Desu can become “Is” making Suteki desu as "Is a little"
Oh, and yes, no spaces in Japanese, but that is only when it is written in Katakana, Hirogana and Kanji. The Roman writing has spaces in it to help make learning Japanese easier, just like we have spaces in English. It is a bridge between languages.
Hi @88Timothy,
Kanji can sometimes scare people with its supposed complexity, but other people enjoy exploring the Kanji world… I’m guessing you are the latter. Just out of curiosity, how do you think you would feel if Furigana was constantly shown for all the items on Memrise?
Hi @ton4755,
Apologies, I forgot to tell you this, but once you log out and back in again, you will see all the changes made on your mobile app as well:slight_smile:
Hi @Helena_Poly,
Wow, thank you for this list! It is very thorough! I’ll use it when I make the fixes 
I’ll probably have some questions for you later as well, but out of curiosity… what do you think of teaching the various words for HUSBAND each as different items? They all have different nuances and suitable context to be used in, do you think you will find it useful to learn all of them separately or would you find that confusing or too much information?
Context is something that is lacking from the current teaching approach and is something I am working on now…
Arigato, kanatsumoto-san!
I think showing furigana would be very nice! During learning it can help to improve the connection between the kanji and the reading, and during review it will not make things easier, since it prompts with English.
Hello again,
That’s exactly what I’ve been saying: context. I really like the jumbled words feature and the short native videos too - those teach the words within a sentence (it’s a shame they don’t appear as review as well!). That’s the best way, or rather, it’s the only way for words without a literal translation or usage. I also find it much easier to learn new words when applied, rather than in abstract. And with a language as different as Japanese, I have no confidence at all in using new words I learned in isolation. And what we don’t use we tend to forget, isn’t it?
HUSBAND:
Yes, that’s what I was hinting at with mum and dad. I think we should learn the most common/formal/can’t offend anyone version as a beginner and then learn the variants (and when/how to use them) at a higher level.
Other courses do that, for example: to eat (polite) - taberu ; to eat (vulgar) - kuu and often (honorific) versions as well.
But I haven’t found any courses that teach context - one more reason why the official ones should focus on that.
Ask away!
Hello,
I’m really enjoying the course, but there are a couple of things that have been bothering me for a while.
Certain words, phrases and symbols appear way more frequently than others. For example, in English-to-Japanese multiple choice questions, 助け, 必要 and 幸運 appear as options way too frequently. This makes words such as 選択肢 very hard to remember, since they never appear as possible answers to a question, and when those words are the focus, they can be picked out with simple deduction instead of knowing the word in question (because the other 3 are so frequent).
Also, it’s not uncommon to be presented with a complex English sentence while the choices for the answer consist of 3 simple words and one proper sentence. The answer becomes obvious without even reading the answers. This isn’t as big of a problem as the previous one though. There is a fair amount of occasions where the presented answers are sentences with a reasonable length difference and the bad questions might just be random chance. My first complaint though, happens so frequently that I’m convinced it’s a flaw in the algorithm.
Hi,
I have started learning Hiragana with the help of Japanese 1 but I feel like there is something missing between course 4 (more sounds of the natives) and 5 (test run your hiragana).
There is a couple of kana in course 5 that have not been introduced in previous courses and that are not being introduced in course 5. You just get confronted with a word that has new kana or what I assume to be Kanji (e.g. Kanpai 乾杯). There also is the word kudasai ください and I am quite sure that the kana く has not been introduced in any of the courses before. Is this intended?
I am also wondering if you have to draw the letters at some point? How else are we supposed to learn how to write? Is there a special writing course of should I use a different website/app for that?
I am quite sure that these questions have been asked a 100 times before but I have not been able to find the answers. so apologies in advance.
Being relatively new to memrise, I wanted to also use this opportunity to say thank you to everyone involved making the app and the courses! I never had that much fun learning languages. Thanks a ton!
For writing, I can recommend the app Obenkyo (http://obenkyo.fr/). Also practice writing on paper now and then, but this is a convenient way to learn the stroke order.
This new version with hiragana buttons isn’t working properly: a lot of the time the extra buttons aren’t displaying (basically giving you the answer) and when you mistype the answer, the “You wrote” part isn’t displaying anything at all!
I like that when we finish typing the full correct answer, it immediately lights up, but this isn’t always working either.
The idea of having buttons isn’t bad, but I think it needs to have more extra buttons or even all of them in a fixed position, like a keyboard. I was doing the lesson on a different computer the other day so I used the buttons and it took me all the time available to find them and put them in order! However, with only a few to choose from, I often look at them to check if my answer is correct, which is kind of cheating!
That is a general issue not related to just these courses, see e.g. Memrise Release Notes - 28 Nov 2017 (Update on changes to typing test)
Hi @dangerdustin,
Thank you for your request!
Hiragana sessions are what we are working on at the moment, and we are hoping to launch them in the near future. You are right that quite a few hiragana and katakana are missing from the current course. It has been on our radar for some time and we are taking action now.
The writing sessions may take a bit more time as it requires some technical aids as well. But hopefully we will have good news soon!
I saw this issue in other topics, but the only response seemed to be to link here. I also looked in here and could not find it, but apologies if this has already been addressed.
In Japanese Level 3 lesson 38, 押す(おす)is marked as “pull (on a door)” and 引く(ひく) is marked as “push (on a door)” - I believe the translations are switched.
I just downloaded the app yesterday. I’m using this, another app, as well as just started learning hiragana on my own outside of the apps by writing them out from memory (just started learning and I’m going hard at it).
Just wanted to let you know that ri (hiragana) is being incorrectly shown in its katakana form. Meaning the app will ask for me to pick ri (hiragana), and there will be no り option. Instead I have to pick リ to answer the question correctly. I have not gotten far enough to see if the ri (katakana) is reversed in the same way.
Hi @jonbspeck37
Thank you for flagging on this, I made the correction now so once you log out and log in again (if you are on your phone), you should be able to see the update as well. Thank you!
Hi @michaeljlindemann
Thank you for this! I’d like to check, so could you send me a screenshot of this please!
ありがとうございました！
Hi everyone,
Im new here and have just started using the app and web browser, but as I’m going through the course, I find its upped my level to 8, but obviously I’m still on level 3 of learning.Which brings me to another problem. I haven’t gone through level 2 nor can I access it. Does anyone have this issue? I tried to ignore it thinking maybe thats how the course is structured, but then it takes me to chatbot and is got Katakana and Kanji, which I haven’t even seen yet! It tells me that I should know them because I have done them in Japanese 1 level 7 and 9 or food vocabulary in Japanese 2 level 19… That’s way ahead of where I am. I tried quitting it and restarting the course again, but I’m hitting the same wall. Anyone have any similar issues?
TIA