[Course Forum] Japanese 1-7 by Memrise

Official Memrise Courses Japanese
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Hi @kroy23

Please find below full course description I posted a few weeks ago.

There are currently 3 separate sets of official Memrise courses. They are referred to as:

Japanese girl thumbnail: Old Japanese course (available 1-3): HIRAGANA ONLY, except Cracking Kanji levels
Blue-ish Sakura thumbnail: Japanese course (available 1-3) : hiragana, kanji and katakana
Pink sakura thumbnail: 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). I would personally recommend the full script course (www.memrise.com/courses/english/japanese-4/)

Let me know if you have any question.

And unfortunately there are no ways to transfer the progress because these are treated as separate courses.

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552

I think the old courses come up in apps. I tried to search for the new ones on my iPhone and only the old courses come up, even the ones I’m not subscribed to. I could only find the new courses on the website, though once they were found I could use them in the app. I mostly use the app so having different things come up in the app vs on the website (and old versions) is not so good.

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553

The female audio for 同じ (onaji/same) reads マリアさんは日本語が上手です (Maria-san ha Nihongo ga jyoozudesu/Maria, you speak Japanese well) instead. Has anyone else noticed this?

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Thanks Mariko,

Also, in that same course, lesson 7, there is another mistake.

When pronouncing Hong Kong, the female voice says “betonamu”, which is japanese for Vietnam.

The male voice says “hon kon”, which is correct.

Thanks and regards

555

This is fixed now! Thanks for pointing it out.

556

I fixed it! Thanks for pointing it out :sunglasses:

557

Hello. A very minor issue: In French 1, the word 私, "わたし”, is defined as “private, me”. It might be a good idea to add “, I” to the definition. While “private, me” might be helpful for the distinctions later of “boku”, etc, in the beginning, us beginners just want to type “I” instead of “private, me” for such a simple concept. (Well, simple in English, anyway.) Thanks!

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Welcome to the forum @pfs32

I could definitely make that change for you but I highly recommend you migrate to the newer version of the course which is available here: https://www.memrise.com/courses/english/japanese-4/

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559

Awesome. Thanks. I just happen to be only one module from the Japanese 2 course so that works. Thanks, again.

560

With the new courses the old Japanese 1-3 are not maintained anymore? I hope the new ones won’t contain these often annoying flaws:

-Unnecessary words are not marked in English:
This is a very good offer -> とてもよいおふぁーです (If you add これは then is is invalid)

-Random use of ru-form and masu-form for verbs:
read -> よむ
swim -> およぎます and so on. In the old level 3 it is really annoying.

I just started to “migrate” to the new script courses by starting them from level 1. I wonder if the kanji will scare people away. :slight_smile:

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561

Hi
I am using the Swedish version of Japanese 1 and have discovered an issue on level 11 “what do you like?”

わたしは おれんじが すきです has the Sweidsh translation “Jag gillar inte appelsiner” inte = not
It should be わたしは おれんじが すきです ありません.
The “help me learn this” section needs to be improved as well because it now says the conflicting: “jag gillar appelsiner. Jag gillar inte appelsiner = わたしは おれんじが すきです ありません”

The new course versions does not exist in Swedish as far as I can tell. While I have no issues learning Japanese via my second language I just prefer the Swedish version.

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Hi Fluffis,

Thanks for pointing out the errors. That item should actually be ‘I like oranges’ わたしはおれんじがすきです。So I’ve fixed the Swedish translation.

By the way, if you ever want to say I don’t like oranges, it would look like the following: わたしはおれんじがすきではありません

563

Hi there, I just wanted to ask if there had been any update on the levels 4-7? Really enjoying the new course and love how the kanji is just introduced. I guess it is a challenge, but if we are to learn Japanese, we may as well tackle it head on!

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Hi,
I enjoyed the new (using kanji) Japanese 1-3 very much. Actually I have gone through them twice already. I found some problems but they are not major and I hesitate to point them out. Here are some of them. The first character in "一キロ” (one kilo) is number one but when I type in "一キロ” correctly, the course won’t accept it as a correct answer. Then I type in the symbol hyphen “-” instead of a number one (kanji) the course accepts it as a right answer.

Another one is 空港便 and 航空便 are being used interchangably. The audio is the former but when you answer the question you need to use the latter. By the way, I do not know if they are both the same.

I am looking forward to studying the Japanese 4,5,6,7 (using kanji). Are they ready yet? By they way, if you want me to, I can go through Japanese 3 again and give you screen shots of some possible problems.

Here again, thank you very much for your hard work. I have learned a lot from your courses.

Wongjohnyc

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565

Hello!

I’m so glad to hear that the you like the new versions of the courses. A lot of effort had gone into it and to hear that it’s helpful puts a smile on my face :slight_smile: I’ve corrected the mistake you pointed out, the 一キロ and 空港便。They were both typos. If you can’t see the changes being reflected, please log out first and log back in.

As for the Japanese 4-7, I can’t really tell you when they’re going to be released yet. I’m afraid it’s not in the plans for the immediate future. @rinnymcphee

566

As some others have stated, the new Japanese 1-3 courses are much better, but I didn’t even know they existed because they do not show up in the android version of the phone app, only the old versions with just hirigana. I had to add them on the website. A little disappointed that i could have spent the last couple months learning with the good versions instead of the old ones.

567

hi @nbren11 actually the new courses do show up on app. you just need to refresh it by logging in and out if you have the newest version of memrise installed

Screenshot_2017-04-14-08-31-13.jpg1080×1920 337 KB

Screenshot_2017-04-14-08-36-54.jpg1080×1920 577 KB

568

New Kanji Japanese 2 lesson 6 “同じ” has female audio that doesn’t match during review.

569

Hello, thanks for the course it’s great!
I have two simple questions so far:

  1. Why is the kanji for KAWAITE different in 乾いています and in 喉が渇いています ?
  2. Does 好きです apply only to food, or also to persons, animals, countries, books… ?
    Thanks for your answers. Have a great day !
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570

The following is to the best of my knowledge, so anybody feel free to correct me if I’m wrong :slight_smile:

If I were mean, I’d say your first question is wrong :wink: There’s no such thing as “a kanji for a reading”. There are roughly 100 sounds in the Japanese language (unvoiced, voiced etc.). On the other hand, there are more than 2.000 commonly used kanji, and more than 40.000 kanji overall. So you just can’t have a separate sound for each kanji. Many times you’ll find kanji that are read identically. For example, 「工」 and 「口」 can both be read 「こう」.

To make things even more complicated, many kanji have more than one reading. 「工」 can be read as 「こう」 or 「く」, depending on which word the kanji’s in. 「口」 can be read as 「こう」 or 「く」 or 「くち」.

To come back to your question, 「乾」 and 「渇」 are different kanji with related meanings that happen to have the same reading, too. The verb 「渇く」 means, according to Jisho.org, “to be thirsty” or “to thirst, to crave for something”. The verb 「乾く」 means, according to Jisho.org, “to get dry”. Both are read as 「かわく」.

So 「喉が渇いています」 and 「喉が乾いています」 both mean something like “(my) throat is dry” or “(my) throat is thirsty”, or, as we would say in English, “(I’m) thirsty” or “being thirsty”. And they happen to be read exactly the same.

But since 「乾いています」 is taught in the course as “to be dry” and according to Jisho.org 「喉が乾く」 is a (standing?) phrase for “being thirsty”, it might be a good idea to use 「喉が乾いています」 in the course. That would also match the principle we’ve seen with 「お腹」 and 「お腹が空いてます」. What do you think, @MarikoMiz?

And concerning the second question, 「好きです」 can used to express that one likes anything or anybody, not just food. Judging by the manga and anime I’ve read or seen, this phrase is actually used to confess your feelings to somebody (though I’m not sure if in this case the relatively formal 「～です」 form would be used).

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