買わなくて is the negative te-form of “to buy”, i.e., it becomes something like “I must not not buy”, which is Japanese for “I have to buy”.
If you want to say “I must not buy” it would be 私は傘を買ってはいけません。
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/must
As you can see in the link, your example is also somewhat correct, but it only applies in certain cases where this conditional is valid (see http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/conditionals).
Oh, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I’m sorry! (:
Japanese use double negative a lot
I found another translation issue in the Japanese 3 for German learners:
In Level 28
貸します is translated as “ausleihen” (borrow)
借ります is translated as “verleihen” (loan)
but it should be exactly the other way round.
Hi @Helena_Poly
Thank you for your very good list. They are all very good points and most of them have been fixed in the new course. I’d like to take this opportunity to announce that the updated Japanese courses for US users are ow available. I’m very sorry that it took so long for us to release these courses, but below is finally the latest version.
Your points on the item 残念 is one that has not been addressed in the updated course, but I promise you I will look for improved ways to teach this item in the future changes.
For さいあく！ and さいこうです！, they are more like phrases, rather than the word alone. I’m sorry that wasn’t conveyed very clearly. Another action item for me and the future courses!
Again, thank you very very much for your suggestions and I hope you would keep sending them to me!
@JJ_or_Jemima @taylor_mcewan1 @DylanKing1999 @cvigil @Marcus.W @burlingk @henning.kockerbeck
I’ve tagged those of you who I think have mentioned the flaws in the old US courses. Hope you enjoy the new ones!
Kana
Hi @renskuilman,
I always feel frustrated with the limitations of my own capabilities when reading all your messages and understanding how unfacilitated the current course structures cant be for some users! There surely are many things that need to be changed, and please be reassured that you are being heard:slight_smile:
You are very right, the current course is not particularly making it easy for users to learn Kanji. Some of them will be taken out in my future changes if they are deemed too advance or not practical. (Some of them are not even used by Japanese natives, I have to admit) Slowly but surely, the Kanji problem will be resolved… until then, like @burlingk has rightly advised, don’t be scared of them;)
Regarding the recent changes to Japanese 2, it might be that you are now on the new Japanese courses. We have updated the courses for US learners. The old one had some flaws and will no longer be updated, so I would recommend you to stay on the new one if that is what you are currently on.
Hello again @renskuilman!
Some of the items you mentioned here don’t sound like they could be from or official courses though…? At the moment, we don’t have a level we teach only Kanji>English meaning (although it actually could be a good approach if done right). I also believe we teach the Japanese for coffee in Katakana, and not in Hiragana… or were you talking about the general experience of learning Japanese? In which case I would totally agree. Depending on your mother tongue, you will have three or more layers of complication when learning Japanese i.e. script>sound>meaning. Finding ways to facilitate this for the learners is my goal and your inputs are helping me a lot in this aspect! Thank you!
@kanatsumoto Thank you so much for your response. I love how active you all are in helping and improving this system.
I only wanted to show off the whole coffee etc in hiragana part. Again it’s not a huge deal, I was just wondering about it.
Apart from Apple, arent they all supposted to be in Katakana? Or is this done to prefent it getting to difficult? (This is the official Memrise Japanese 1 by the way)
Thanks again.
Hi again,
Thank you for these links but I think I’m doing the UK versions? I don’t know, how can I check?
OK, I had stopped making note of the mistakes and shortcomings, but I’ll starting noting them again!
Meanwhile two comments:
Something I find very useful in user’s courses but that Memrise ones don’t have, is the little box indicating whether the word is a verb or a noun or an adjective etc.
But what I like best about Memrise official courses is the learning of complex full sentences rather than individual words. I wish you would take this further.
Hi @burlingk,
From my understanding, you won’t get Speed Review unless you choose to run that mode, correct? or does it run regularly and automatically without you tapping the mode on your device? If so, could you tell me your phone device please, so I can consult with the tech team? Thanks!
Hello @colinr,
Thank you for flagging this! You are right, the US English translation was not sufficient here. I have fixed this on the course now, so once you log out and log in again, you should be able to see the changes reflected.
Thank you!
Thank you @Scintilla!
I’ve asked our German Specialist to check on this. Should be fixed by the end of the day, when you can log out and log in again to see the changes.
Hi @renskuilman,
Thank you for the screenshot, and yes you are right, it is a Memrise official course, isn’t it! That is actually the old course that we no longer update. We have the following new updated course now.
The old course is mostly taught in Hiragana, even when you would use Kanji or Katakana in real like, as you pointed out earlier. This was the team’s approach when they first created the course for the purpose of easing in the users. The updated courses, especially the script ones have a more practical approach. If the words are written in Kanji in Japan, they will be written in Kanji, because that’s how you would actually see it in real life. However, you may find this a bit brutal as it expects you to learn Kanjis from very early stages and many of them at the same time. This point is soon to be addressed in our upcoming new system. I’m hoping to make the marking less strict so that user can type in hiraganas if they don’t know the correct kanji.
For now, to answer your original question, if you go to the new courses, you will see those items (coffee, banana…) in Katakana. I would also recommend the new course because all the errors found in the old courses are fixed there, whereas the old course does not get updated anymore. Hope that help! Thanks!
Hi @Helena_Poly,
If your phone is set in UK English, you should be signed up for the UK version. Or, if you go from the website, you will be able to choose your mother tongue language on the page and the search result will be for that language.
The difference between the old and new courses are the course pictures.
Does this information help at all? I’m sorry it’s all confusing!
Hi @Scintilla,
Thanks, I have fixed it now. If you log out and in again, you should be able to see the changes. Thanks again and happy learning! Cheers, Linh
I am using a Samsung Galaxy 7 Edge.
There are no real settings options that I have found.
Thank you very much for the hard work you all put into these courses.
In Japanese 1 lessons 7 and 9 ( Katakanas ) during the tests, the only options given are hiraganas and the single correct Katakana, which doesn’t make selecting the right character very hard.
Another small remark, in Japanese 1 lesson 5 the ~は topic particle’s description doesn’t use ( ) while the possessive particle ~の etc do use ( ) in their descriptions
~どうもありがとうございます
Just curious, has there been any recent news on when a Japanese Course 4 with kanji might be released? Thanks!
There is 1 space too many between the word and the semicolon and the correct answer will be marked wrong in the Japanese for US English,Japanese 1, Level 5.
Damn I forgot to bring this issue up myself! 
