This thread is for these course:
and
The first is supported by @DW7, @SpeakingLatino.com and @b-bjoer as in the description, although the latter two don’t seem to be active here any longer.
DW7 is now (May 2023) supporting the second course.
Hehehe, yeah, I thought it was wrong. There are a whole bunch of ungrammatical things, or things that I suspect are ungrammatical) in the course (It’s the “Learn Italian Conjugation” course). Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be able to contact the course owner. The best I’ve found was their Facebook page, so I sent a message through FB, but I’ve never heard back.
It’s a pity, because the course itself is pretty good for helping me memorize and internalize verb conjugations, though I do have to give incorrect answers to be “correct” in the reviews/quizzes.
Anyway, thanks for the heads up.
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Agree with @trevro that (1) there are real mistakes in the It’s the “Learn Italian Conjugation” course and (2) there’s no way to contact the owner (broken link in the course info page).
Here’s an example mistake:
English translation hint for learning stare (sto, stai, sta,…) say “(permanent state)” to distinguish from essere. First of all, many don’t agree with this rule about stare vs. essere, but much worse than that: it’s actually the opposite of the rule; i.e., it should be “(temporary state)” according to sites like this, this dictionary, etc…
Shouldn’t there be a way to fix obvious errors when the owner is unresponsive? As @trevo says “It’s a pity, because the course itself is pretty good” for verb conjugation practice in Italian in terms of the quantity of content and number of tenses/voices covered.
Is there a better course ?
Hi @trevro and @Tony, I’ve moved your posts from the Official MemRise Italian Courses area to the Community Italian courses area as that is more appropriate.
That is why I have not spotted your comments before.
Of the 7 or so who initially supported this course I seem to be the only person active here.
Although I had nothing to do with the creation of the course I did assist Easy Academy with some simple proof-reading when the course was launched.
Your question seems to be asking for better courses - hopeful you’ll gets some replies, but I would recommend the excellent Official MemRise course as your best starting point.
But there are many Italian courses that are actively supported including those by myself and @sandslane (created by @roygbiv)
See > this link <
And this is > the thread < for comment:
Would any of you (who currently support ex-Easy Academy courses) be happy to support this course?
@MagdalenaGolden
@colva
@DavidClarke
@MoonTulip
@teacup1
@rbrucefloyd
@garymacrae
@DW7, if you have access to the “Learn Italian Conjugation” course, I request you to consider whether “(permanent state)” is correct for the various forms of “stare”. It seems to be teaching exactly the opposite of what it should be, based on the references I cited.
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Hi @tony, thanks for your clear request and the links you gave above to the correct use. I’ll do some research - thanks for those links.
Can you tell me which level they are in, please - as it may take some time to find otherwise.
I’ll check them out and hopefully make the changes hopefully (and reply here).
Sadly in big courses there can easily be some errors.
@DW7 I suggest that you (or anyone managing a course) install the MemriseUtilities since this allows you to see a listing of all words/phrase including the section in which that word/phrase is located for a course.
[MemriseUtilities (https://github.com/scytalezero/MemriseUtilities/blob/master/README.md)
The above is all you need, but here are the instructions spelled out:
- Install an extension the Tampermonkey extension into Chrome using this link
- Install the specialized Memrise script at this link
Once installed a “Word List” link will appear at the top of the course details page. After clicking that Word List link, you can paste the data into a spreadsheet and do a search.
For example, I searched for “perm” and found:
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Thanks @Tony, great suggestion of that search, but as a creator or contributor, we can do that with the inbuilt search.
Right - I agree “sono stato” etc is like a visit - temporary.
What is the Italian for permanent? Presumably “Essere” which is to be.
What about “Sono inglese” = permanent - is that “essere” although not present?
This is what I see @tony,
There are at least three pages.
As you can see there is an attribute that says “stare”
So shall I change all STARE but not ESSERE?
@DW7 Yes, you found the exact entries I was referring to.
The reason I’m taking this course is because I don’t know Italian well, so I’m not the right person to ask what is the proper way to teach such distinctions. I may be able to recognize errors, but I’m still just a beginner.
By the way, I’ve completed the first 6 standard Memrise Italian courses and am beginning on the 7th. But in my daily attempts to speak Italian I find that I’m way too slow at conjugating the verbs correctly. The standard Memrise Italian courses do not drill verb forms to the extent that this conjugation course does, and so far I’ve found it quite helpful. They are coming to mind quicker now, at least for the ones I’ve studied.
But, honestly, when I first encountered this error with “stare” I lost my confidence that those putting the course together were competent. After all, if such an obvious mistake was made, how many other mistakes might be there that I wouldn’t recognize? That is why I came to the forum.
I’m encouraged that you are looking into it.
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Right @Tony, I’ve done all those. You are welcome to check by doing your search.
Only correct answers will be correct (as dummy answers stay there).
Well done in completing the first 6 MemRise Italian courses.
(You may have seen that I’ve posted many comments on their > official thread < which I have been told by @MemriseSupport that they will address.)
There are lots of other courses around that are supported, but not all have audio and not many have full verbs, so well done finding this course.
Anyway thanks for finding and pointing out the issue.
I hope @trevro will come to this tread if he finds any issues.
(It’s always worth reading the course description as many of us state that we support a course.)
@DW7 I found more instances of “stare” being defined using “(permanent state)” in the section on Gerunds. Here’s how “stando” is defined:
This means “(permanent state)” can also be found throughout the section on Gerunds.
Also, within one of the questions in that section I saw answer options having to do with the past tense – material presumably covered later in the course – so I suspect that this definition for verb forms of “stare” runs throughout the course.
First item
So “Stando” - is temporary is it? I can amend the 13 occurrences if you agree.
Second item
“Sapendo” - isn’t this answer 4 = knowing (facts and skills) - so it’s correct, isn’t it?
@DW7 regarding the second image I posted on “sapendo”, I agree that “knowing (facts and skills)” is the right answer, but that was not my point. My point was that one of the wrong answers reveals that “(permanent state)” is present in other parts of the course that I have not covered. So if you determine to remove “(permanent state)” it should be done throughout the course.
As I wrote earlier, there seems to be disagreement regarding whether “permanent” vs. “temporary” is an appropriate way to distinguish “essere” from “stare”. On the other hand, it seems many teach this way Here’s one example.
After thinking about it and looking for alternatives, I can understand why this would be the way things are taught to beginners. But I’m certainly no authority and would much prefer that someone who really understands Italian make the decision.
Hi @Tony
My point was that one of the wrong answers reveals that “(permanent state)” is present
The others are “dummy” answers that are set up when the course is made so the will remain the same, as I stated above
Only correct answers will be correct (as dummy answers stay there).
If you are interested to read about it - search for “Phantom entries”.
Secondly
whether “permanent” vs. “temporary” is an appropriate way to distinguish “essere” from “stare”.
If anyone else read these threads they may have a know a better system.
So “ Stando ” - is temporary is it? I can amend the 13 occurrences …
Changed.
I was thinking that you could do a search for “permanent” and find all the different forms of “stare” that are incorrectly defined. At least that’s possible with the search method that I referred to earlier.
I suppose another way would be to look up a detailed grammar table for “stare“, for example:
https://www.wordreference.com/conj/ITverbs.aspx?v=stare
In any event, here is yet another case:
I just did a review section during the course and there were several questions involving forms of stare in the very earliest part of the course (such as “sto”) with “(permanent state)” still there. These were definitely not “dummy answers”, but the question statements themselves.
Regarding “dummy answers that are set up when the course is made", I understand the concept, and I can appreciate that some items will be easier to fix (edit) than others. This is how it is with computers: once you make a mistake, they are wonderfully efficient and multiplying the mistake.
But there is always a way to fix things: you start over. Of course, that can be ridiculously difficult. And in situations like that you speak to the computer folks to let them know there needs to be a better way. Otherwise, they don’t realize there’s a problem. I may not know Italian, but I know computers and that somewhere, someone knows how to fix this. It’s just a matter of finding them.
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Right I found 18 more instances of STARE that were permanent and they are now temporary
Your first and last “I am” is presumably correct as “permanent” = “io sono”.
Re
But there is always a way to fix things: …
… I know computers and that somewhere, someone knows how to fix this. It’s just a matter of finding them.
Yes there is - on the “phantom entries” thread there is very long discussions about how to do it - but it’s out of my league.
Better would be if @MemriseSupport could add a simple button to regenerate dummy answers - and we have been hoping that this will be provided in one of the many update releases they are undertaking at present.
I hope that’s the last remaining issue with Stare being “permanent”.
PS It wasn’t - every time I do a page full, I search again and find another 20 (some of course are essere so I do not alter them).
There should NOT be any more, but let me know if there are any others.
Thanks for your vigilance @Tony.